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AMERICAN PROSE 



HAWTHORNE : IRVING : LONGFELLOW 

WHITTIER: HOLMES: LOWELL: 

THOREAU: EMERSON 



WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES 

BY THE EDITOR OP "AMERICAN POEMS " 




** OF 



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BOSTON 
HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY 

W$t Htoeraifce T$xzm> Camfcrttge 

1880 



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- 

Copyright, 1851 and 1854, 
By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. ^O' 

Copyright, 1879, 
By ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP. 

Copyright, 1857, 
By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Copyright, 1866, 
By JOHN G. WHITTIER. 

Copyright, 1872, 
By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Copyright, 1871, 
By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Copyright, 1854, 
By HENRY D. THOREAU. 

Copyright, 1864, 
By TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 

Copyright, 1860 and 1870, 
By RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

Copyright, 1880, 
By HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. 



All rights reserved. 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



PEEFAOE. 



I 



N making a selection of American Prose the 
principle which controlled in American Poems 
has been followed. The book does not profess to 
be representative of the authors included, but com- 
plete papers or stories have been taken of a length 
permitting a fair display of some of the author's 
characteristics. The object has been to set before 
the reader some of the higher forms of prose art 
as interpreted by American writers, and to culti- 
vate a taste for the enduring elements of literature. 
As before, an attempt has been made to lead the 
student from the simpler to the more involved and 
subtle forms, and throughout the book the litera- 
ture of knowledge has been less regarded than the 
literature of power. The best result will be reached 
if those who use this volume are impelled to ask 
for the fuller works of the authors whose acquaint- 
ance as writers of prose they may here make. 



iv PREFACE. 

In American Poems a brief biographical sketch 
of each writer was given, and since a similar plan 
in this volume would have required some repeti- 
tion, the editor has preferred to make the introduc- 
tions more general in character, with a view to sug- 
gesting points of critical inquiry in literature, for 
such a volume as this offers a good opportunity for 
directing young students toward a more thoughtful 
attention in reading. Prose, with its familiar forms 
and its more intimate relations to other studies, is 
often a better field for practice in criticism than 
poetry, especially as the student has the advan- 
tage of using it himself. The writing of poetry 
frequently helps in a critical interpretation of 
poetical forms, but to most such exercises have an 
element of unreality, while prose, as the mother 
tongue of all, affords a material which is never 
strange. It is worth while, therefore, to show the 
young what fine qualities exist in that which all 
men are using. 

The more expanded character of prose makes 
annotation less necessary than in poetry. Besides, 
the interruption of an obscure reference is less 
fatal to enjoyment than in poetry. The editor, 
therefore, has given fewer notes than in American 



PREFACE. v 

Poems, and has purposely left work to be done by 
the reader, the doing of which will add a zest to 
his reading. This is most noticeable in the case 
of Emerson's essay on Boohs. It would be an 
admirable exercise for any young student to edit 
this paper by making full references to the array 
of points presented in it. A similar exercise in 
local historical study could be found in commenting 
upon Hawthorne's sketch of Howe's Masquerade. 

Acknowledgment is made to Messrs. G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons for their courtesy in permitting the use 
of the selections from Irving's Sketch Booh 



CONTENTS. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. page 

introduction 1 

The Snow-Image 8 

The Geeat Stone Face . . . .32 
Drowne's Wooden Image ... 62 
Howe's Masquerade . . • ... 82 

WASHINGTON IRVING. 

introduction 104 

Rd? Van Winkle 110 

Little Britain 140 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

introduction 165 

The Valley of the Loire . . . 171 
Journey into Spain 183 

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTLER. 

INTRODUCTION 195 

Yankee Gypsies 198 

The Boy Captives 220 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

introduction 232 

The Gambrel-Roofed House . . . 237 



vin CONTENTS. 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. page 

introduction 264 

My Garden Acquaintance . . . 268 
HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

introduction 296 

Sounds 302 

Brute Neighbors 323 

The Highland Light .... 338 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

introduction 366 

Behavior ....... 373 

Books . 397 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 



INTRODUCTION. 

IT was Hawthorne's wont to keep note-books, in 
which he recorded his observations and reflec- 
tions ; sometimes he spoke in them of himself, his 
plans, and his prospects. He began the practice 
early, and continued it through life, and after his 
death selections from these note-books were pub- 
lished in six volumes, under the titles : Passages 
from the American Note-Boohs of Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne, Passages from the English Note-Books of 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Passages from the French 
and Italian Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
In these books, and in prefaces which appear in 
the front of the volumes containing his collected 
stories, one finds many frank expressions of the 
interest which Hawthorne took in his work, and 
the author appeals very ingenuously to the reader, 
speaking with an almost confidential closeness of 
his stories and sketches. Then the Note-Books 
contain the unwrought material of the books which 
the writer put out in his lifetime. One finds there 
the suggestions of stories, and frequently pages of 
1 



2 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

observation and reflection, which were afterward 
transferred, almost as they stood, into the author's 
works. It is a very interesting labor to trace Haw- 
thorne's stories and sketches back to these records 
in his note-books, and to compare the finished work 
with the rough material. It seems, also, as if each 
reader was admitted into the privacy of the author's 
mind. That is the first impression, but a closer 
study reveals two facts very clearly. One is stated 
by Hawthorne himself in his preface to The Snow- 
Image and other Twice- Told Tales : "I have been 
especially careful [in my Introductions] to make 
no disclosures respecting myself which the most 
indifferent observer might not have been acquainted 
with, and which I was not perfectly willing that 

my worst enemy should know I have taken 

facts which relate to myself [when telling stories] 
because they chance to be nearest at hand, and 
likewise are my own property. And, as for ego- 
tism, a person who has been burrowing, to his 
utmost ability, into the depths of our common nat- 
ure for the purposes of psychological romance — 
and who pursues his researches in that dusky region, 
as he needs must, as well by the tact of sympathy 
as by the light of observation — will smile at in- 
curring such an imputation in virtue of a little 
preliminary talk about his external habits, his abode, 
his casual associates, and other matters entirely 
upon the surface. These things hide the man 
instead of displaying him. You must make quite 
another kind of inquest, and look through the 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

whole range of his fictitious characters, good and 
evil, in order to detect any of his essential traits." 

There has rarely been a writer of fiction, then, 
whose personality has been so absolutely separate 
from that of each character created by him, and at 
the same time has so intimately penetrated the 
whole body of his writing. Of no one of his char- 
acters, male or female, is one ever tempted to say, 
This is Hawthorne, except in the case of Miles Cov- 
erdale in The Blithedale Romance, where the circum- 
stances of the story tempt one into an identification ; 
yet all of Hawthorne's work is stamped emphatically 
with his mark. Hawthorne wrote it, is very simple 
and easy to say of all but the merest trifle in his 
collected works ; but the world has yet to learn who 
Hawthorne was, and even if he had not forbidden 
a biography of himself, it is scarcely likely that 
any life could have disclosed more than he has 
chosen himself to reveal. 

The advantage of this is that it leaves the stu- 
dent free to concentrate his attention upon the 
writings rather than on the man. Hawthorne, in 
the passage quoted above, speaks of himself as one 
"who has been burrowing, to his utmost ability, 
into the depths of our common nature for the pur- 
poses of psychological romance," and this states, as 
closely as so short a 'sentence can, the controlling 
purpose and end of the author. The vitality of 
Hawthorne's characters is derived but little from 
any external description ; it resides in the truthful- 
ness with which they respond to some permanent 



4 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

and controlling operation of the human soul. Look- 
ing into his own heart, and always, when studying 
others, in search of fundamental rather than occa- 
sional motives, he proceeded to develop these mo- 
tives in conduct and life. Hence he had a leaning 
toward the allegory, where human figures are< 
merely masks for spiritual activities, and sometimes 
he employed the simple allegory, as in The Celes- 
tial Railroad. More often in his short stories he 
has a spiritual truth to illustrate, and uses the sim- 
plest, most direct means, taking no pains to conceal 
his purpose, yet touching his characters quietly or 
playfully with human sensibilities, and investing 
them with just so much real life as answers the 
purpose of the story. This is exquisitely done in 
The Snow-Image. The consequence of this " bur- 
rowing into the depths of our common nature " has 
been to bring much of the darker and concealed 
life into the movement of his stories. The fact of 
evil is the terrible fact of life, and its workings in 
the human soul had more interest for Hawthorne 
than the obvious physical manifestations. Since 
his observations are less of the men and women 
whom everybody sees and recognizes than of the 
souls which are hidden from most eyes, it is not 
strange that his stories should often lay bare se- 
crets of sin, and that a somewhat dusky light should 
seem to be the atmosphere of much of his work. 
Now and then, especially when dealing with child- 
hood, a warm, sunny glow spreads over the pages 
of his books ; but the reader must be prepared for 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

the most part to read stories which lie in the 
shadow of life. 

There was one class of subjects which had a 
peculiar interest for Hawthorne, and in a measure 
affected his work. He had a strong taste for New 
England history, and he found in the scenes and 
characters of that history favorable material for the 
representation of spiritual conflict. He was him- 
self the most New England of New Englanders, 
and held an extraordinary sympathy with the very 
soil of his section of the country. By this sympa- 
thy, rather than by any painful research, he was 
singularly acquainted with the historic life of New 
England. His stories, based directly on historic 
facts, are true to the spirit of the times in some- 
thing more than an archaeological way. One is as- 
tonished at the ease with which he seized upon 
characteristic features, and reproduced them in a 
word or phrase. Merely careful and diligent re- 
search would never be adequate to give the life-like- 
ness of the images in Howe's Masquerade. 

There is, then, a second fact discovered by a 
study of Hawthorne, that while one finds in the 
Note-Books, for example, the material out of which 
stories and sketches seem to have been constructed, 
and while the facts of New England history have 
been used without exaggeration or distortion, the 
result in stories and romances is something far be- 
yond a mere report of what has been seen and 
read. The charm of a vivifying imagination is the 
crowning charm of Hawthorne's stories, and its 



6 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

medium is a graceful and often exquisitely apt dic- 
tion. Hawthorne's sense of touch as a writer is 
very fine. He knows when to be light, and when 
to press heavily ; a very conspicuous quality is what 
one is likely to term quaintness, — a gentle pleas- 
antry which seems to spring from the author's atti- 
tude toward his own work, as if ^he looked upon 
that, too, as a part of the spiritual universe which 
he was surveying. 

Hawthorne spent much of his life silently, and 
there are touching passages in his note-books re- 
garding his sense of loneliness and his wish for rec- 
ognition from the world. His early writings were 
short stories, sketches, and biographies, scattered in 
magazines and brought together into Twice-Told 
Tales, in two volumes, published, the first in 1837, 
the second in 1842 ; Mosses from an Old Manse, in 
1846 ; The Snow-Image and other Twice- Told Tales, 
in 1851. They had a limited circle of readers. 
Some recognized his genius, but it was not until the 
publication of The Scarlet Letter, in 1850, that Haw- 
thorne's name was fairly before the world as a great 
and original writer of romance. The House of the 
Seven Gables followed in 1851. The Blithedale 
Romance in 1852. He spent the years 1853-1860 
in Europe, and the immediate result of his life there 
is in Our Old Home : A Series of English Sketches, 
published in 1863, and The Marble Faun, or the 
Romance of Monte Beni, in 1864. For young 
people he wrote Grandfather s Chair, a collection 
of stories from New England history, The Won- 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

der-Booh and Tanglewood Tales, containing stories 
out of classic mythology. There are a few other 
scattered writings which have been collected into 
volumes and published in the complete series of his 
works. 

Hawthorne was born July 4, 1804, and died 
May 19, 1864. 

The student of Hawthorne will find in G. P. 
Lathrop's A Study of Hawthorne, and Henry James 
Jr.'s Hawthorne, in the series English Men of Let- 
ters, material which will assist him. Dr. Holmes 
published, shortly after Hawthorne's death, a paper 
of reminiscences which is included in Soundings 
from the Atlantic ; and Longfellow welcomed Twice- 
Told Tales with a glowing article in the North 
American Review, xlviii. 59, which is reproduced in 
his prose works. The reader will find it an agree- 
able task to discover what the poets, Longfellow, 
Lowell, Stedman, and others have said of this man 
of genius. 



I. 

THE SNOW-IMAGE: 

A CHILDISH MIRACLE. 

One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the 
sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long 
storm, two children asked leave of their mother to 
run out and play m the new-fallen snow. The 
elder child was a little girl, whom, because she was 
of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought 
to be very beautiful, her parents, and other people 
who were familiar with her, used to call Violet. 
But her brother was known by the style and title 
of Peony, on account of the ruddiness of his broad 
and round little phiz, which made everybody think 
of sunshine and great scarlet flowers. The father 
of these two children, a certain Mr. Lindsey, it is 
important to say, was an excellent but exceediDgly 
matter-of-fact sort of man, a dealer in hardware, 
and was sturdily accustomed to take what is called 
the common-sense view of all matters that came 
under his consideration. With a heart about as 
tender as other people's, he had a head as hard and 
impenetrable, and therefore, perhaps, as empty, as 
one of the iron pots which it was a part of his busi- 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 9 

ness to sell. The mother's character, on the other 
hand, had a strain of poetry in it, a trait of un- 
worldly beauty, — a delicate and dewy flower, as 
it were, that had survived out of her imaginative 
youth, and still kept itself alive amid the dusty re- 
alities of matrimony and motherhood. 

So Violet and Peony, as I began with saying, 
besought their mother to let them run and play in 
the new snow ; for, though it had looked so dreary 
and dismal, drifting downward out of the gray sky, 
it had a very cheerful aspect now that the sun was 
shining on it. The children dwelt in a city, and 
had no wider play-place than a little garden before 
the house, divided by a white fence from the street, 
and with a pear-tree and two or three plum-trees 
overshadowing it, and some rose-bushes just in front 
of the parlor windows. The trees and shrubs, how- 
ever, were now leafless, and their twigs were envel- 
oped in the light snow, which thus made a kind of 
wintry foliage, with here and there a pendent icicle 
for the fruit. 

" Yes, Violet, — yes, my little Peony," said their 
kind mother ; " you may go out and play in the 
new snow." 

Accordingly, the good lady bundled up her dar- 
lings in woollen jackets and wadded sacks, and put 
comforters round their necks, and a pair of striped 
gaiters on each little pair of legs, and worsted mit- 
tens on their hands, and gave them a kiss apiece, 
by way of a spell to keep away Jack Frost. Forth 
sallied the two children, with a hop-skip-and-jump 



10 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

that carried them at once into the very heart of a 
huge snow-drift, whence Violet emerged like a snow- 
bunting, while little Peony floundered out with his 
round face in full bloom. Then what a merry time 
had they ! To look at them, frolicking in the win- 
try garden, you would have thought that the dark 
and pitiless storm had been sent for no other pur- 
pose but to provide a new plaything for Violet and 
Peony ; and that they themselves had been created, 
as the snow-birds were, to take delight only in the 
tempest, and in the white mantle which it spread 
over the earth. 

At last, when they had frosted one another all 
over with handfuls of snow, Violet, after laughing 
heartily at little Peony's figure, was struck with a 
new idea. 

" You look exactly like a snow-image, Peony," 
said she, " if your cheeks were not so red. And 
that puts me in mind ! Let us make an image out 
of snow, — an image of a little girl, — and it shall 
be our sister, and shall run about and play with us 
all winter long. Won't it be nice ? " 

" Oh, yes ! " cried Peony, as plainly as he could 
speak, for he was but a little boy. " That will be 
nice ! And mamma shall see it ! " 

" Yes," answered Violet ; " mamma shall see the 
new little girl. But she must not make her come 
into the warm parlor ; for, you know, our little 
snow-sister will not love the warmth." 

And forthwith the children began this great busi- 
ness of making a snow-image that should run about ; 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 11 

while their mother, who was sitting at the window 
and overheard some of their talk, could not help 
smiling at the gravity with which they set about it. 
They really seemed to imagine that there would be 
no difficulty whatever in creating a live little girl 
out of the snow. And to say the truth, if miracles 
are ever to be wrought, it will be by putting our 
hands to the work in precisely such a simple and 
undoubting frame of mind as that in which Violet 
and Peony now undertook to perform one, without 
so much as knowing that it was a miracle. So 
thought the mother ; and thought, likewise, that 
the new snow, just fallen from heaven, would be 
excellent material to make new beings of, if it were 
not so very cold. She gazed at the children a mo- 
ment longer, delighting to watch their little figures, 
— the girl, tall for her age, graceful and agile, and 
so delicately colored that she looked like a cheerful 
thought, more than a physical reality ; while Peony 
expanded in breadth rather than height, and rolled 
along on his short and sturdy legs as substantial as 
an elephant, though not quite so big. Then the 
mother resumed her work; what it was I forget, 
but she was either trimming a silken bonnet for 
Violet, or darning a pair of stockings for little 
Peony's short legs. Again, however, and again, 
and yet other agains, she could not help turning 
her head to the window to see how the children got 
on with their snow-image. 

Indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight, 
those bright little souls at their tasks ! Moreover, 



12 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

it was really wonderful to observe how knowingly 
and skilfully they managed the matter. Violet as- 
sumed the chief direction, and told Peony what to 
do, while, with her own delicate fingers, she shaped 
out all the nicer parts of the snow-figure. It 
seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the 
children, as to grow up under their hands, while 
they were playing and prattling about it. Their 
mother was auite surprised at this ; and the longer 
she looked the more and more surprised she grew. 

" What remarkable children mine are ! " thought 
she, smiling with a mother's pride ; and, smiling at 
herself, too, for being so proud of them. " What 
other children could have made anything so like a 
little girl's figure out of snow at the first trial ? 
Well ; — but now I must finish Peony's new frock, 
for his grandfather is coming to-morrow, and I want 
the little fellow to look handsome." 

So she took up the frock, and was soon as busily 
at work again with her needle as the two children 
with their snow-image. But still, as the needle 
travelled hither and thither through the seams of 
the dress, the mother made her toil light and happy 
by listening to the airy voices of Violet and Peony. 
They kept talking to one another all the time, their 
tongues being quite as active as their feet and hands. 
Except at intervals, she could not distinctly hear 
what was said, but had merely a sweet impression 
that they were in a most loving mood, and were 
enjoying themselves highly, and that the business 
of making the snow-image went prosperously on. 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 13 

Now and then, however, when Violet and Peony 
happened to raise their voices, the words were as 
audible as if they had been spoken in the very par- 
lor where the mother sat. Oh, how delightfully 
those words echoed in her heart, even though they 
meant nothing so very wise or wonderful, after 

all ! 

But you must know a mother listens with her 
heart much more than with her ears ; and thus she 
is often delighted with the trills of celestial music, 
when other people can hear nothing of the kind. 

" Peony, Peony ! " cried Violet to her brother, 
who had gone to another part of the garden, " bring 
me some of that fresh snow, Peony, from the very 
farthest corner, where we have not been trampling. 
I want it to shape our little snow-sister's bosom 
with. You know that part must be quite pure, 
just as it came out of the sky ! " 

" Here it is, Violet ! " answered Peony, in his 
bluff tone, — but a very sweet tone, too, — as he 
came floundering through the half-trodden drifts. 
" Here is the snow for her little bosom. O Violet, 
how b'eau-ti-ful she begins to look ! " 

"Yes," said Violet, thoughtfully and quietly; 
" our snow-sister does look very lovely. I did not 
quite know, Peony, that we could make such a 
sweet little girl as this." 

The mother, as she listened, thought how fit and 
delightful an incident it would be, if fairies, or, 
still better, if angel-children were to come from 
paradise and play invisibly with her own darlings, 



14 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

and help them to make their snow-image, giving it 
the features of celestial babyhood ! Violet and Pe- 
ony would not be aware of their immortal play- 
mates, — only they would see that the image grew 
very beautiful while they worked at it, and would 
think that they themselves had done it all. 

" My little girl and boy deserve such playmates, 
if mortal children ever did ! " said the mother to 
herself; and then she smiled again at her own 
motherly pride. 

Nevertheless, the idea seized upon her imagina- 
tion ; and, ever and anon, she took a glimpse out 
of the window, half dreaming that she might see 
the golden-haired children of paradise sporting with 
her own golden-haired Violet and bright-cheeked 
Peony. 

Now, for a few moments, there was a busy and 
earnest, but indistinct, hum of the two children's 
voices, as Violet and Peony wrought together with 
one happy consent. Violet still seemed to be the 
guiding spirit, while Peony acted rather as a la- 
borer, and brought her the snow from far and near. 
And yet the little urchin evidently had a proper 
understanding of the matter, too ! 

" Peony, Peony ! " cried Violet ; for her brother 
was again at the other side of the garden. " BriEg 
me those light wreaths of snow that have rested on 
the lower branches of the pear-tree. You can. 
clamber on the snow-drift, Peony, and reach them 
easily. I must have them to make some ringlets 
for our snow-sister's head ! " 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 15 

" Here they are, Violet ! " answered the little 
boy. " Take care you do not break them. Well 
done ! "Well done ! How pretty ! " 

" Does she not look sweetly ? " said Violet, with 
a very satisfied tone ; " and now we must have some 
little shining bits of ice, to make the brightness of 
her eyes. She is not finished yet. Mamma will 
see how very beautiful she is ; but papa will say, 
* Tush ! nonsense ! — come in out of the cold ! ' " 

" Let us call mamma to look out," said Peony ; 
and then he shouted lustily, "Mamma! mamma! ! 
mamma ! ! ! Look out, and see what a nice little 
girl we are making ! " 

The mother put down her work, for an instant, 
and looked out of the window. But it so happened 
that the sun — for this was one of the shortest days 
of the whole year — had sunken so nearly to the 
edge of the world that his setting shine came ob- 
liquely into the lady's eyes. So she was dazzled, 
you must understand, and could not very distinctly 
observe what was in the garden. Still, however, 
through all that bright, blinding dazzle of the sun 
and the new snow she beheld a small white figure 
in the garden that seemed to have a wonderful deal 
of human likeness about it. And she saw Violet and 
Peony, — indeed, she looked more at them than at 
the image, — she saw the two children still at work ; 
Peony bringing fresh snow, and Violet applying it to 
the figure as scientifically as a sculptor adds clay to 
his model.. Indistinctly as she discerned the snow- 
child, the mother thought to herself that never before 



16 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

was there a snow-figure so cunningly made, nor ever 
such a dear little girl and boy to make it. 

" They do everything better than other children," 
said she, very complacently. " No wonder they 
make better snow-images ! " 

She sat down again to the work, and made as 
much haste with it as possible; because twilight 
would soon come, and Peony's frock was not yet 
finished, and grandfather was expected, by railroad, 
pretty early in the morning. Faster and faster, 
therefore, went her flying fingers. The children, 
likewise, kept busily at work in the garden, and 
still the mother listened, whenever she could catch 
a word. She was amused to observe how their 
little imaginations had got mixed up with what 
they were doing, and were carried away by it. 
They seemed positively to think that the snow-child 
would run about and play with them. 

" What a nice playmate she will be for us, all 
winter long ! " said Violet. " I hope papa will not 
be afraid of her giving us a cold ! Shan't you ' 
love her dearly, Peony ? " 

" Oh, yes ! " cried Peony. "And I will hug her, 
and she shall sit down close by me, and drink some 
of my warm milk ! " 

" Oh, no, Peony ! " answered Violet, with grave 
wisdom. " That will not do at all. Warm milk 
will not be wholesome for our little snow-sister. 
Little snow-people, like her, eat nothing but icicles. 
No, no, Peony; we must not give her anything 
warm to drink ! " 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 17 

There was a minute or two of silence ; for Peony, 
whose short legs were never weary, had gone on a 
pilgrimage again to the other side of the garden. All 
of a sudden Violet cried out, loudly and joyfully, — 

" Look here, Peony ! Come quickly ! A light 
has been shining on her cheek out of that rose- 
colored cloud ! and the color does not go away ! 
Is not that beautiful ! " 

" Yes ; it is beau-ti-ful," answered Peony, pro- 
nouncing the three syllables with deliberate accu- 
racy. " O Violet, only look at her hair ! It is all 
like gold ! " 

" Oh, certainly," said Violet, with tranquillity, as 
if it were very much a matter of course. " That 
color, you know, comes from the golden clouds 
that we see up there in the sky. She is almost 
finished now. But her lips must be made very red, 
— redder than her cheeks. Perhaps, Peony, it will 
make them red if we both kiss them ! " 

Accordingly, the mother heard two smart little 
smacks, as if both her children were kissing the 
snow-image on its frozen mouth. But, as this did 
not seem to make the lips quite red enough, Violet 
next proposed that the snow-child should be invited 
to kiss Peony's scarlet cheek. 

" Come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me ! " cried Pe- 
ony. 

"There! she has kissed you," added Violet, 
" and now her lips are very red. And she blushed 
a little, too ! " 

" Oh, what a cold kiss ! " cried Peony. 
2 



18 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

Just then came a breeze of the pure west-wind, 
sweeping through the garden and rattling the par- 
lor windows. It sounded so wintry cold that the 
mother was about to tap on the window-pane with 
her thimbled finger, to summon the two children 
in, when they both cried out to her with one voice. 
The tone was not a tone of surprise, although they 
were evidently a good deal excited ; it appeared 
rather as if they were very much rejoiced at some 
event that had now happened, but which they had 
been looking for, and had reckoned upon all along. 

" Mamma! mamma ! We have finished our little 
snow-sister, and she is running about the garden 
with us ! " 

" What imaginative little beings my children 
are ! " thought the mother, putting the last few 
stitches into Peony's frock. " And it is strange, 
too, that they make me almost as much a child as 
they themselves are ! I can hardly help believing, 
now, that the snow-image has really come to life ! " 

" Dear mamma ! " cried Violet, " pray look out 
and see what a sweet playmate we have ! " 

The mother, being thus entreated, could no longer 
delay to look forth from the window. The sun was 
now gone out of the sky, leaving, however, a rich 
inheritance of his brightness among those purple 
and golden clouds which make the sunsets of win- 
ter so magnificent. But there was not the slight- 
est gleam or dazzle, either on the window or on 
the snow ; so that the good lady could look all over 
the garden, and see everything ana" everybody in 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 19 

it. And what do you think she saw there ? Vio- 
let and Peony, of course, her own two darling chil- 
dren. Ah, but whom or what did she see besides ? 
Why, if you will believe me, there was a small fig- 
ure of a girl, dressed all in white, with rose-tinged 
cheeks and ringlets of golden hue, playing about the 
garden with the two children ! A stranger though 
she was, the child seemed to be on as familiar terms 
with Violet and Peony, and they with her, as if all 
the three had been playmates during the whole of 
their little lives. The mother thought to herself 
that it must certainly be the daughter of one of the 
neighbors, and that, seeing Violet and Peony in the 
garden, the child had run across the street to play 
with them. So this kind lady went to the door, 
intending to invite the little runaway into her com- 
fortable parlor; for, now that the sunshine was 
withdrawn, the atmosphere out of doors was al- 
ready growing very cold. 

But, after opening the house-door, she stood an 
instant on the threshold, hesitating whether she 
ought to ask the child to come in, or whether she 
should even speak to her. Indeed, she almost 
doubted whether it were a real child, after all, or 
only a light wreath of the new-fallen snow, blown 
hither and thither about the garden by the intensely 
cold west-wind. There was certainly something 
very singular in the aspect of the little stranger. 
Among all the children of the neighborhood, the 
lady could remember no such face, with its pure 
white, and delicate rose-color, and the golden ring- 



20 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

lets tossing about the forehead and cheeks. And as 
for her dress, which was entirely of white, and flut- 
tering in the breeze, it was such as no reasonable 
woman would put upon a little girl, when sending 
her out to play, in the depth of winter. It made 
this kind and careful mother shiver only to look at 
those small feet, with nothing in the world on them 
except a very thin pair of white slippers. Never- 
theless, airily as she was clad, the child seemed to 
feel not the slightest inconvenience from the cold, 
but danced so lightly over the snow that the tips of 
her toes left hardly a print in its surface ; while 
Violet could but just keep pace with her, and Peo- 
ny's short legs compelled him to lag behind. 

Once, in the course of their play, the strange 
child placed herself between Violet and Peony, and 
taking a hand of each, skipped merrily forward, and 
they along with her. Almost immediately, how- 
ever, Peony pulled away his little fist, and began 
to rub it as if the fingers were tingling with cold ; 
while Violet also released herself, though with less 
abruptness, gravely remarking that it was better 
not to take hold of hands. The white-robed dam- 
sel said not a word, but danced about, just as mer- 
rily as before. If Violet and Peony did not choose 
to play with her she could make just as good a 
playmate of the brisk and cold west-wind, which 
kept blowing her all about the garden, and took 
such liberties with her that they seemed to have 
been friends for a long time. All this while the 
mother stood on the threshold, wondering how a 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 21 

little girl could look so much like a flying snow- 
drift, or how a snow-drift could look so very like a 
little girl. 

She called Violet, and whispered to her. 

" Violet, my darling, what is this child's name ? " 
asked she. " Does she live near us ? " 

" Why, dearest mamma," answered Violet, laugh- 
ing to think that her mother did not comprehend so 
very plain an affair, " this is our little snow-sister, 
whom we have just been making ! " 

" Yes, dear mamma," cried Peony, running to his 
mother, and looking up simply into her face. " This 
is our snow-image ! Is it not a nice 'ittle child ? " 

At this instant a flock of snow-birds came flit- 
ting through the air. As was very natural, they 
avoided Violet and Peony. But — and this looked 
strange — they flew at once to the white-robed 
child, fluttered eagerly about her head, alighted on 
her shoulders, and seemed to claim her as an old ac- 
quaintance. She, on her part, was evidently as 
glad to see these little birds, old Winter's grand- 
children, as they were to see her, and welcomed 
them by holding out both her hands. Hereupon, 
they each and all tried to alight on her two palms 
and ten small fingers and thumbs, crowding one an- 
other off, with an immense fluttering of their tiny 
wings. One dear little bird nestled tenderly in her 
bosom ; another put its bill to her lips. They were 
as joyous, all the while, and seemed as much in 
their element as you may have seen them when 
sporting with a snow-storm. 



22 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

Violet and Peony stood laughing at this pretty 
sight ; for they enjoyed the merry time which their 
new playmate was having with these small-winged 
visitants almost as much as if they themselves took 
part in it. 

"Violet," said her mother, greatly perplexed, 
" tell me the truth, without any jest. Who is this 
little girl?" 

" My darling mamma," answered Violet, looking 
seriously into her mother's face, and apparently 
surprised that she should need any further expla- 
nation, " I have told you truly who she is. It is 
our little snow-image, which Peony and I have 
been making. Peony will tell you so, as well as 
I." 

" Yes, mamma," asseverated Peony, with much 
gravity in his crimson little phiz j " this is 'ittle 
snow-child. Is not she a nice one ? But, mamma, 
her hand, is oh, so very cold ! " 

While mamma still hesitated what to think and 
what to do, the street-gate was thrown open, and 
the father of Violet and Peony appeared, wrapped 
in a pilot-cloth sack, with a fur cap drawn down 
over his ears, and the thickest of gloves upon his 
hands. Mr. Lindsey was a middle-aged man, with 
a weary and yet a happy look in his wind-flushed 
and frost-pinched face, as if he had been busy all 
the day long, and was glad to get back to his quiet 
home. His eyes brightened at the sight of his wife 
and children, although he could not help uttering 
a word or two of surprise at finding the whole 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 23 

family in the open air, on so bleak a day, and after 
sunset too. He soon perceived the little white 
stranger, sporting to and fro in the garden, like a 
dancing snow-wreath, and the flock of snow-birds 
fluttering about her head. 

" Pray, what little girl may that be ? " inquired 
this very sensible man. " Surely her mother must 
be crazy, to let her go out in such bitter weather 
as it has been to-day, with only that flimsy white 
gown and those thin slippers ! " 

" My dear husband," said his wife, " I know no 
more about the little thing than you do. Some 
neighbor's child, I suppose. Our Violet and Peony," 
she added, laughing at herself for repeating so ab- 
surd a story, " insist that she is nothing but a snow- 
image, which they have been busy about in the 
garden almost all the afternoon." 

As she said this, the mother glanced her eyes 
toward the spot where the children's snow-image 
had been made. What was her surprise, on per- 
ceiving that there was not the slightest trace of so 
much labor ! — no image at all ! — no piled-up heap 
of snow ! — nothing whatever save the prints of 
little footsteps around a vacant space ! 

" This is very strange ! " said she. 

" What is strange, dear mother ? " asked Violet. 
" Dear father, do not you see how it is ? This is 
our snow-image, which Peony and I have made, 
because we wanted another playmate. Did not 
we, Peony ? " 

" Yes, papa," said crimson Peony. " This be our 



24 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

'ittle snow-sister. Is she not beau-ti-ful ? But she 
gave me such a cold kiss ! " 

" Poh, nonsense, children ! v cried their good, hon- 
est father, who, as we have already intimated, had 
an exceedingly common-sensible way of looking at 
matters. " Do not tell me of making live figures 
out of snow. Come, wife ; this little stranger must 
not stay out in the bleak air a moment longer. 
We will bring her into the parlor ; and you shall 
give her a supper of warm bread and milk, and 
make her as comfortable as you can. Meanwhile, 
I will inquire among the neighbors ; or, if neces- 
sary, send the city crier about the streets, to give 
notice of a lost child." 

So saying, this honest and very kind-hearted 
man was going toward the little white damsel, 
with the best intentions in the world. But Violet 
and Peony, each seizing their father by the hand, 
earnestly besought him not to make her come in. 

" Dear father," cried Violet, putting herself be- 
fore him, " it is true what I have been telling you ! 
This is our little snow-girl, and she cannot live any 
longer than while she breathes the cold west-wind. 
Do not make her come into the hot room ! " 

" Yes, father," shouted Peony, stamping his little 
foot, so mightily was he in earnest, " this be noth- 
ing but our 'ittle snow-child ! She will not love 
the hot fire ! " 

" Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense !" cried 
the father, half vexed, half laughing at what he 
considered their foolish obstinacy. " Run into the 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 25 

house, this moment! It is too late to play any- 
longer now. I must take care of this little girl 
immediately, or she will catch her death-a-cold ! " 

" Husband ! dear husband ! " said his wife, in a 
low voice, — for she had been looking narrowly at 
the snow-child, and was more perplexed than ever, 
— " there is something very singular in all this. 
You will think me foolish, — but — but — may it 
not be that some invisible angel has been attracted 
by the simplicity and good-faith with which our 
children set about their undertaking ? May he 
not have spent an hour of his immortality in play- 
ing with those dear little souls ? and so the result 
is what we call a miracle. No, no ! Do not laugh 
at me ; I see what a foolish thought it is ! " 

"My dear wife," replied the husband, laughing 
heartily, " you are as much a child as Violet and 
Peony." 

And in one sense so she was ; for all through life 
she had kept her heart full of childlike simplicity 
and faith, which was as pure and clear as crystal ; 
and, looking at all matters through this transparent 
medium, she sometimes saw truths so profound that 
other people laughed at them as nonsense and ab- 
surdity. 

But now kind Mr. Lindsey had entered the gar- 
den, breaking away from his two children, who still 
sent their shrill voices after him, beseeching him to 
let the snow-child stay and enjoy herself in the cold 
west-wind. As he approached the snow-birds took 
to flight. The little white damsel, also, fled back- 



26 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

ward, shaking her head, as if to say, " Pray do not 
touch me!" and roguishly, as it appeared, leading 
him through the deepest of the snow. Once, the 
good man stumbled, and floundered down upon his 
face, so that, gathering himself up again, with the 
snow sticking to his rough pilot-cloth sack, he 
looked as white and wintry as a snow-image of the 
largest size. Some of the neighbors, meanwhile, 
seeing him from their windows, wondered what 
could possess poor Mr. Lindsey to be running about 
his garden in pursuit of a snow-drift, which the 
west-wind was driving hither and thither ! At 
length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased the 
little stranger into a corner, where she could not 
possibly escape him. His wife had been looking on, 
and, it being nearly twilight, was wonder-struck to 
observe how the snow-child gleamed and sparkled, 
and how she seemed to shed a glow all round about 
her ; and when driven into the corner, she positively 
glistened like a star ! It was a frosty kind of 
brightness, too^ like that of an icicle in the moon- 
light. The wife thought it strange that good Mr. 
Lindsey should see nothing remarkable in the snow- 
child's appearance. 

" Come, you odd little thing ! " cried the honest 
man, seizing her by the hand, " I have caught you 
at last, and will make you comfortable in spite of 
yourself. We will put a nice, warm pair of worsted 
stockings on your frozen little feet, and you shall 
have a good thick shawl to wrap yourself in. Your 
poor white nose, I am afraid, is actually frost-bitten. 
But we will make it all right. Come along in." 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 27 

And so, with a most benevolent smile on his 
sagacious visage, all purple as it was with the cold, 
this very well-meaning gentleman took the snow- 
child by the hand and led her towards the house. 
She followed him, droopingly and reluctant ; for 
all the glow and sparkle was gone out of her figure ; 
and whereas just before she had resembled a bright, 
frosty, star-gemmed evening, with a crimson gleam 
on the cold horizon, she now looked as dull and 
languid as a thaw. As kind Mr. Lindsey led her 
up the steps of the door, Violet and Peony looked 
into his face, — their eyes full of tears, which froze 
before they could run down their cheeks, — and 
again entreated him not to bring their snow-image 
into the house. 

" Not bring her in ! " exclaimed the kind-hearted 
man. " Why, you are crazy, my little Violet ! — 
quite crazy, my small Peony ! She is so cold, 
already, that her hand has almost frozen mine, in 
spite of my thick gloves. Would you have her 
freeze to death ? " 

His wife, as he came up the steps, had been tak- 
ing another long, earnest, almost awe-stricken gaze 
at the little white stranger. She hardly knew 
whether it was a dream or no ; but she could not 
help fancying that she saw the delicate print of 
Violet's fingers on the child's neck. It looked 
as if, while Violet was shaping out the image, she 
had given it a gentle pat with her hand, and had 
neglected to smooth the impression quite away. 

" After all, husband," said the mother, recurring 



28 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

to her idea that the angels would be as much de- 
lighted to play with Violet and Peony as she her- 
self was, — " after all, she does look strangely like 
a snow-image ! I do believe she is made out of 
snow ! " 

A puff of the west-wind blew against the snow- 
child, and again she sparkled like a star. 

" Snow ! " repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing 
the reluctant guest over his hospitable threshold.. 
" No wonder she looks like snow. She is half 
frozen, poor little thing ! But a good fire will put 
everything to rights." 

Without further talk, and always with the same 
best intentions, this highly benevolent and common- 
sensible individual led the little white damsel — 
drooping, drooping, drooping, more and more — 
out of the frosty air, and into his comfortable 
parlor. A Heidenberg stove, filled to the brim 
with intensely burning anthracite, was sending a 
bright gleam through the isinglass of its iron door, 
and causing the vase of water on its top to fume 
and bubble with excitement. A warm, sultry 
smell was diffused throughout the room. A ther- 
mometer on the wall farthest from the stove stood 
at eighty degrees. The parlor was hung with red 
curtains, and covered with a red carpet, and looked 
just as warm as it felt. The difference betwixt the 
atmosphere here and the cold, wintry twilight out 
of doors, was like stepping at once from Nova 
Zembla to the hottest part of India, or from the 
North Pole into an oven. Oh, this was a fine place 
for the little white stranger ! 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 29 

The common-sensible man placed the snow-child 
on the hearth-rug, right in front of the hissing and 
fuming stove. 

" Now she will be comfortable ! " cried Mr. 
Lindsey, rubbing his hands and looking about him 
with the pleasantest smile you ever saw. " Make 
yourself at home, my child." 

Sad, sad and drooping, looked the little white 
maiden, as she stood on the hearth-rug, with the 
hot blast of the stove striking through her like a 
pestilence. Once, she threw a glance wistfully to- 
ward the windows, and caught a glimpse, through 
its red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs, and the 
stars glimmering frostily, and all the delicious in- 
tensity of the cold night. The bleak wind rattled 
the window-panes, as if it were summoning her to 
come forth. But there stood the snow-child, droop- 
ing, before the hot stove ! 

But the common-sensible man saw nothing amiss. 

" Come, wife," said he, "let her have a pair of 
thick stockings and a woollen shawl or blanket 
directly ; and tell Dora to give her some warm 
supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet and 
Peony, amuse your little friend. She is out of 
spirits, you see, at finding herself in a strange place. 
For my part, I will go around among the neigh- 
bors, and find out where she belongs." 

The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of 
the shawl and stockings ; for her own view of the 
matter, however subtle and delicate, had given way, 
as it always did, to the stubborn materialism of 



30 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

her husband. Without heeding the remonstrances 
of his two children, who still kept murmuring that 
their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, 
good Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the 
parlor-door carefully behind him. Turning up the 
collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from 
the house, and had barely reached the street-gate, 
when he was recalled by the screams of Violet and 
Peony, and the rapping of a thimbled finger against 
the parlor window. 

" Husband ! husband ! " cried his wife, showing 
her horror-stricken face through the window-panes. 
" There is no need of going for the child's parents ! " 

" We told you so, father ! " screamed Violet and 
Peony, as he reentered the parlor. "You would 
bring her in ; and now our poor — dear — beau-ti- 
ful little snow-sister is thawed ! " 

And their own sweet little faces were already 
dissolved in tears ; so that their father, seeing 
what strange things occasionally happen in this 
every-day world, felt not a little anxious lest his 
children might be going to thaw too ! In the ut- 
most perplexity, he demanded an explanation of 
his wife. She could only reply, that, being sum- 
moned to the parlor by the cries of Violet and 
and Peony, she found no trace of the little white 
maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of 
snow, which, while she was gazing at it, melted 
quite away upon the hearth-rug. 

" And there you see all that is left of it ! " added 
she, pointing to a pool of water in front of the 
stove. 



THE SNOW-IMAGE. 31 

" Yes, father," said Violet, looking reproachfully 
at him, through her tears, " there is all that is left 
of our dear little snow-sister ! " 

" Naughty father ! " cried Peony, stamping his 
foot, and — I shudder to say — shaking his little 
fist at the common-sensible man. " We told you 
how it would be ! What for did you bring her in ? " 

And the Heidenberg stove, through the isinglass 
of its door, seemed to glare at good Mr. Lindsey, 
like a red-eyed demon, triumphing in the mischief 
which it had done ! 

This, you will observe, was one of those rare 
cases, which yet will occasionally happen, where 
common-sense finds itself at fault. The remarka- 
ble story of the snow-image, though to that saga- 
cious class of people to whom good Mr. Lindsey 
belongs it may seem but a childish affair, is, never- 
theless, capable of being moralized in various 
methods, greatly for their edification. One of its 
lessons, for instance, might be, that it behooves 
men, and especially men of benevolence, to con- 
sider well what they are about, and, before acting 
on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure 
that they comprehend the nature and all the re- 
lations of the business in hand. What has been 
established as an element of good to one being 
may prove absolute mischief to another ; even as 
the warmth of the parlor was proper enough for 
children of flesh and blood, like Violet and Peony, 
— though by no means very wholesome, even for 
them, — but involved nothing short of annihilation 
to the unfortunate snow-image. 



32 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

But, after all, there is no teaching anything to 
wise men of good Mr. Lindsey's stamp. They 
know everything, — oh, to be sure ! — everything 
that has been, and everything that is, and every- 
thing that, by any future possibility, can be. And, 
should some phenomenon of nature or providence 
transcend their system, they will not recognize it, 
even if it come to pass under their very noses. 

" Wife," said Mr. Lindsey, after a fit of silence, 
u see what a quantity of snow the children have 
brought in on their feet ! It has made quite a pud- 
dle here before the stove. Pray tell Dora to bring 
some towels and sop it up ! " 



II. 
THE GREAT STONE FACE. 

One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a 
mother and her little boy sat at the door of their 
cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face. They 
had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly 
to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine 
brightening all its features. 

And what was the Great Stone Face ? 

Embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains 
there was a valley so spacious that it contained 
many thousand inhabitants. Some of these good 
people dwelt in log huts, with the black forest all 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 33 

around them, on the steep and difficult hillsides. 
Others had their homes in comfortable farm-houses, 
and cultivated the rich soil on the gentle slopes or 
level surfaces of the valley. Others, again, were 
congregated into populous villages, where some 
wild, highland rivulet, tumbling down from its 
birthplace in the upper mountain region, had been 
caught and tamed by human cunning, and com- 
pelled to turn the machinery of cotton-factories. 
The inhabitants of this valley, in short, were nu- 
merous, and of many modes of life. But all of 
them, grown people and children, had a kind of 
familiarity with the Great Stone Face, although 
some possessed the gift of distinguishing this grand 
natural phenomenon more perfectly than many of 
their neighbors. 

The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nat- 
ure in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on 
the perpendicular side of a mountain by some im- 
mense rocks, which had been thrown together in 
such a position as, when viewed at a proper dis- 
tance, precisely to resemble the features of the 
human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous 
giant, or a Titan, had sculptured his own likeness 
on the precipice. There was the broad arch of the 
forehead, a hundred feet in height ; the nose, with 
its long bridge ; and the vast lips, which, if they 
could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder 
accents from one end of the valley to the other. 
True it is, that if the spectator approached too near 
he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and could 
3 



34 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, 
piled in chaotic ruin one upon another. Retracing 
his steps, however, the wondrous features would 
again be seen ; and the farther he withdrew from 
them, the more like a human face, with all its orig- 
inal divinity intact, did they appear ; until, as it 
grew dim in the distance, with the clouds and glori- 
fied vapor of the mountains clustering about it, the 
Great Stone Face seemed positively to be alive. 

It was a happy lot for children to grow up to 
manhood or womanhood with the Great Stone Face 
before their eyes, for all the features were noble, 
and the expression was at once grand and sweet, 
as if it were the glow of a vast, warm heart, that 
embraced all mankind in its affections, and had 
room for more. It was an education only to look 
at it. According to the belief of many people, the 
valley owed much of its fertility to this benign as- 
pect that was continually beaming over it, illuminat- 
ing the clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the 
sunshine. . 

As we began with saying, a mother and her little 
boy sat at their cottage-door, gazing at the Great 
Stone Face, and talking about it. The child's 
name was Ernest. 

" Mother," said he, while the Titanic visage 
smiled on him, " I wish that it could speak, for it 
looks so very kindly that its voice must needs be 
pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a face, 
I should love him dearly." 

" If an old prophecy should come to pass," an- 



TEE GREAT STONE FACE. 35 

swered his mother, " we may see a man, some time 
or other, with exactly such a face as that." 

" What prophecy do you mean, dear mother ? " 
eagerly inquired Ernest. " Pray tell me all about 
it!" s 

So his mother told him a story that her own 
mother had told to her, when she herself was 
younger than little Ernest ; a story, not of things 
that were past, but of what was yet to come; a 
story, nevertheless, so very old, -that even the In- 
dians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had heard 
it from their forefathers, to whom, as they affirmed, 
it had been murmured by the mountain streams, 
and whispered by the wind among the tree-tops. 
The purport was, that, at some future day, a child 
should be born hereabouts, who was destined to 
become the greatest and noblest personage of his 
time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should 
bear an exact resemblance to the Great Stone Face. 
Not a few old-fashioned people, and young ones 
likewise, in the ardor of their hopes, still cherished 
an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But others, 
who had seen more of the world, had watched and 
waited till they were weary, and had beheld no 
man with such a face, nor any man that proved to 
be much greater or nobler than his neighbors, con- 
cluded it to be nothing but an idle tale. At all 
events, the great man of the prophecy had not yet 
appeared. 

" O mother, dear mother ! " cried Ernest, clap- 
ping his hands above his head, " I do hope that I 
shall live to see him ! " 



36 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

His mother was an affectionate and thoughtful 
woman, and felt that it was wisest not to discourage 
the generous hopes of her little boy. So she only 
said to him, " Perhaps you may." 

And Ernest never forgot the story that his 
mother told him. It was always in his mind, when- 
ever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He 
spent his childhood in the log cottage where he was 
born, and was dutiful to his mother, and helpful to 
her in many things, assisting her much with his 
little hands, and more with his loving heart. In 
this manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, 
he grew up to be a mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, 
and sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with 
more intelligence brightening his aspect than is 
seen in many lads who have been taught at famous 
schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher, save only 
that the Great Stone Face became one to him. 
When the toil of the day was over, he would gaze 
at it for hours, until he began to imagine that those 
vast features recognized him, and gave him a smile 
of kindness and encouragement, responsive to his 
own ]ook of veneration. We must not take upon 
us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the 
Face may have looked no more kindly at Ernest 
than at all the world besides. But the secret was, 
that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity dis- 
cerned what other people could not see ; and thus 
the love, which was meant for all, became his pecul- 
iar portion. 

About this time, there went a rumor throughout 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 37 

the valley, that the great man, foretold from ages 
long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to the 
Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems 
that, many years before, a young man had migrated 
from the valley and settled at a distant seaport, 
where, after getting together a little money, he had 
set up as a shopkeeper. His name — but I could 
never learn whether it was his real one, or a nick- 
name that had grown out of his habits and success 
in life — was Gathergold. Being shrewd and act- 
ive, and endowed by Providence with that inscruta- 
ble faculty which develops itself in what the world 
calls luck, he became an exceedingly rich merchant, 
and owner of a whole fleet of bulky-bottomed ships. 
All the countries of the globe appeared to join 
hands for the mere purpose of adding heap after 
heap to the mountainous accumulation of this one 
man's wealth. The cold regions of the north, al- 
most within the gloom and shadow of the Arctic 
Circle, sent him their tribute in the shape of furs ; 
hot Africa sifted for him the golden sands of her 
rivers, and gathered up the ivory tusks of her great 
elephants out of the forests ; the East came bring- 
ing him the rich shawls, and spices, and teas, and 
the effulgence of diamonds, and the gleaming purity 
of large pearls. The ocean, not to be behindhand 
with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that 
Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a 
profit on it. Be the original commodity what it 
might, it was gold within his grasp. It might be 
said of him, as of Midas in the fable, that whatever 



38 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

he touched with his finger immediately glistened, 
and grew yellow, and was changed at once into 
sterling metal, or, which suited him still better, into 
piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had be- 
come so very rich that it would have taken him a 
hundred years only to count his wealth, he be- 
thought himself of his native valley, and resolved 
to go back thither, and end his days where he was 
born. With this purpose in view, he sent a skilful 
architect to build him such a palace as should be 
fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in. 
- As I have said above, it had already been ru- 
mored in the valley that Mr. Gathergold had turned 
out to be the prophetic personage so long and 
vainly looked for, and that his visage was the per- 
fect and undeniable similitude of the Great Stone 
Face. People were the more ready to believe that 
this must needs be the fact, when they beheld the 
splendid edifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on 
the site of his father's old weather-beaten farm- 
house. The exterior was of marble, so dazzlingly 
white that it seemed as though the whole structure 
might melt away in the sunshine, like those hum- 
bler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in his young play- 
days, before his fingers were gifted with the touch 
of transmutation, had been accustomed to build of 
snow. It had a richly ornamented portico, sup- 
ported by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty 
door, studded with silver knobs, and made of a 
kind of variegated wood that had been brought 
from beyond the sea. The windows, from the floor 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 39 

to the ceiling of each stately apartment, were com- 
posed, respectively, of but one enormous pane of 
glass, so transparently pure that it was said to be 
a finer medium than even the vacant atmosphere. 
Hardly anybody had been permitted to see the in- 
terior of this palace ; but it was reported, and with 
good semblance of truth, to be far more gorgeous 
than the outside, insomuch that whatever was iron 
or brass in other houses was silver or gold in this ; 
and Mr. Gathergold's bedchamber, especially, made 
such a glittering appearance that no ordinary man 
would have been able to close his eyes there. But, 
on the other hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so in- 
ured to wealth, that perhaps he could not have 
closed his eyes unless where the gleam of it was 
certain to find its way beneath his eyelids. 

In due time, the mansion was finished ; next came 
the upholsterers, with magnificent furniture ; then 
a whole troop of black and white servants, the har- 
bingers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majes- 
tic person, was expected to arrive at sunset. Our 
friend Ernest, meanwhile, had been deeply stirred 
by the idea that the great man, the noble man, the 
man of prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was 
at length to be made manifest to his native valley. 
He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thou- 
sand ways in which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast 
wealth, might transform himself into an angel of 
beneficence, and assume a control over human af- 
fairs as wide and benignant as the smile of the 
Great Stone Face. Full of faith and hope, Ernest 



40 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

doubted not that what the people said was true, 
and that now he was to behold the living likeness 
of those wondrous features on the mountain-side. 
While the boy was still gazing up the valley, and 
fancying, as he always did, that the Great Stone 
Face returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, 
the rumbling of wheels was heard, approaching 
swiftly along the winding road. 

" Here he comes ! " cried a group of people who 
were assembled to witness the arrival. li Here 
comes the great Mr. Gathergold ! " 

A carriage drawn by four horses dashed round 
the turn of the road. Within it, thrust partly out 
of the window, appeared the physiognomy of a lit- 
tle old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own 
Midas-hand had transmuted it. He had a low fore- 
head, small, sharp eyes, puckered about with in- 
numerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he 
made still thinner by pressing them forcibly to- 
gether. 

" The very image of the Great Stone Face ! " 
shouted the people. " Sure enough, the old proph- 
ecy is true ; and here we have the great man come, 
at last ! " 

And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed 
actually to believe that here was the likeness which 
they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced to 
be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar- 
children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, 
as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands 
and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 41 

beseeching charity. A yellow claw — the very 
same that had clawed together so much wealth — 
poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropped 
some copper coins upon the ground ; so that, though 
the great man's name seems to have been Gather- 
gold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed 
Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest 
shout, and evidently with as much good faith as 
ever, the people bellowed, — 

" He is the very image of the Great Stone 
Face ! " 

But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled 
shrewdness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the 
valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the 
last sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glo- 
rious features which had impressed themselves into 
his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did 
the benign lips seem to say ? 

" He will come ! Fear not, Ernest ; the man 
will come ! " 

The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a 
boy. He had grown to be a young man now. He 
attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of 
the valley ; for they saw nothing remarkable in his 
way of life, save that, when the labor of the day 
was over, he still loved to go apart and gaze and 
meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According 
to their idea of the matter, it was a folly, indeed, 
but pardonable, inasmuch as Ernest was industrious, 
kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for 
the sake of indulging this idle habit. They knew 



12 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

not that the Great Stone Face had become a teacher 
to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed 
in it would enlarge the young man's heart, and fill 
it with wider and deeper sympathies than other 
hearts. They knew not that thence would come a 
better wisdom than could be learned from books, 
and a better life than could be moulded on the de- 
faced example of other human lives. Neither did 
Ernest know that the thoughts and affections which 
came to him so naturally, in the fields and at the 
fireside, and wherever he communed with himself, 
were of a higher tone than those which all men 
shared with him. A simple soul, — simple as when 
his mother first taught him the old prophecy, — he 
beheld the marvellous features beaming adown the 
valley, and still wondered that their human coun- 
terpart-was so long in making his appearance. 

By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and 
buried ; and the oddest part of the matter was, that 
his wealth, which was the body and spirit of his 
existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving 
nothing of him but a living skeleton, covered over 
with a wrinkled, yellow skin. Since the melting 
away of his gold, it had been very generally conceded 
that there was no such striking resemblance, after 
all, betwixt the ignoble features of the ruined mer- 
chant and that majestic face upon the mountain- 
side. So the people ceased to honor him during 
his lifetime, and quietly consigned him to forgetful- 
ness after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, 
his memory was brought up in connection with the 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 43 

magnificent palace which he had built, and which 
had long ago been turned into a hotel for the ac- 
commodation of strangers, multitudes of whom came 
every summer to visit that famous natural curiosity, 
the Great Stone Face. Thus, Mr. Gathergold, be- 
ing discredited and thrown into the shade, the man 
of prophecy was yet to come. 

It so happened that a native-born son of the val- 
ley, many years before, had enlisted as a soldier, 
and, after a great deal of hard fighting, had now be- 
come an illustrious commander. Whatever he may 
be called in history, he was known in camps and 
on the battle-field under the nickname of Old Blood- 
and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being now 
infirm with age and wounds, and weary of the tur- 
moil of a military life, and of the roll of the drum 
and the clangor of the trumpet, that had so long 
been ringing in his ears, had lately signified a pur- 
pose of returning to his native valley, hoping to 
find repose where he remembered to have left it. 
The inhabitants, his old neighbors and their grown- 
up children, were resolved to welcome the re- 
nowned warrior with a salute of cannon and a pub- 
lic dinner; and all the more enthusiastically, it 
being affirmed that now, at last, the likeness of 
the Great Stone Face had actually appeared. An 
aide-de-camp of Old Blood-and-Th under, travelling 
through the valley, was said to have been struck 
with the resemblance. Moreover the schoolmates 
and early acquaintances of the general were ready 
to testify, on oath, that, to the best of their recol- 



44 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

lection, the aforesaid general had been exceedingly 
like the majestic image, even when a boy, only that 
the idea had never occurred to them at that period. 
Great, therefore, was the excitement throughout 
the valley ; and many people, who had never once 
thought of glancing at the Great Stone Face for 
years before, now spent their time in gazing at 
it, for the sake of knowing exactly how General 
Blood-and-Thunder looked. 

On the day of the great festival, Ernest, with all 
the other people of the valley, left their work, and 
proceeded to the spot where the sylvan banquet 
was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice 
of the Rev. Dr. Battleblast was heard, beseeching 
a blessing on the good things set before them, and 
on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor 
they were assembled. The tables were arranged 
in a cleared space of the woods, shut in by the sur- 
rounding trees, except where a vista opened east- 
ward, and afforded a distant view of the Great 
Stone Face. Over the general's chair, which was 
a relic from the home of Washington, there was an 
arch of verdant boughs, with the laurel profusely 
intermixed, and surmounted by his country's ban- 
ner, beneath which he had won his victories. Our 
friend Ernest raised himself on his tip-toes, in hopes 
to get a glimpse of the celebrated guest ; but there 
was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious to 
hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word 
that might fall from the general in reply ; and a 
volunteer company, doing duty as a guard, pricked 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 45 

ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particularly 
quiet person among the throng. So Ernest, being 
of an unobtrusive character, was thrust quite into 
the background, where he could see no more of Old 
Blood-and-Thunder's physiognomy than if it had 
been still blazing on the battle-field. To console 
himself, he turned towards the Great Stone Face, 
which, like a faithful and long-remembered friend, 
looked back and smiled upon him through the vista 
of the forest. Meantime, however, he could over- 
hear the remarks of various individuals, who were 
comparing the features of the hero with the face 
on the distant mountain-side. 

ki 'T is the same face, to a hair ! " cried one man, 
cutting a caper for joy. 

" Wonderfully like, that *s a fact ! " responded 
another. 

" Like ! why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder 
himself, in a monstrous looking-glass ! " cried a 
third. " And why not ? He 's the greatest man 
of this or any other age, beyond a doubt." 

And then all three of the speakers gave a great 
shout, which communicated electricity to the crowd, 
and called forth a roar from a thousand voices, that 
went reverberating for miles amojig the mountains, 
until you might have supposed that the Great Stone 
Face had poured its thunder-breath into the cry. 
All these comments, and this vast enthusiasm, 
served the more to interest our friend ; nor did he 
think of questioning that now, at length, the moun- 
tain-visage had found its human counterpart. It is 



46 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

true, Ernest had imagined that this long-looked-for 
personage would appear in the character of a man 
of peace, uttering wisdom, and doing good, and 
making people happy. But, taking an habitual 
breadth of view, with all his simplicity, he contended 
that Providence should choose its own method of 
blessing mankind, and could conceive that this great 
end might be effected even by a warrior and a 
bloody sword, should inscrutable wisdom see fit to 
order matters so. 

" The general ! the general ! " was now the cry. 
" Hush ! silence ! Old Blood-and-Thunder 's going 
to make a speech." 

Even so ; for, the cloth being removed, the gen- 
eral's health had been drunk amid shouts of ap- 
plause, and he now stood upon his feet to thank the 
company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over 
the shoulders of the crowd, from the two glittering 
epaulets and embroidered collar upward, beneath 
the arch of gr«en boughs with intertwined laurel, 
and the banner drooping as if to shade his brow ! 
And there, too, visible in the same glance, through 
the vista of the forest, appeared the Great Stone 
Face ! And was there, indeed, such a resemblance 
as the crowd had testified ? Alas, Ernest could 
not recognize it. He beheld a war-worn and 
weather-beaten countenance, full of energy, and ex- 
pressive of an iron will ; but the gentle wisdom, the 
deep, broad, tender sympathies, were altogether 
wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder's visage; and 
even if the Great Stone Face had assumed his look 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 47 

of stern command, the milder traits would still have 
tempered it. 

" This is not the man of prophecy," sighed Ernest 
to himself, as he made his way out of the throng. 
" And must the world wait longer jet ? " 

The mists had congregated about the distant 
mountain-side, and there were seen the grand and 
awful features of the Great Stone Face, awful but 
benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among 
the hills and enrobing himself in a cloud-vesture of 
gold and purple. As he looked, Ernest could hardly 
believe but that a smile beamed over the whole 
visage, with 'a radiance still brightening, although 
without motion of the lips. It was probably the 
effect of the western sunshine, melting through the 
thinly diffused vapors that had swept between him 
and the object that he gazed at. But — as it al- 
ways did — the aspect of his marvellous friend 
made Ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in 
vain. 

" Fear not, Ernest," said his heart, even as if the 
Great Face were whispering him, — " fear not, 
Ernest ; he will come." 

More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. 
Ernest still dwelt in his native valley, and was now 
a man of middle age. By imperceptible degrees, 
he had become known among the people. Now, 
as heretofore, he labored for his bread, and was the 
same simple-hearted man that he had always been. 
But he had thought and felt so much, he had given 
so many of the best hours of his life to unworldly 



48 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

hopes for some great good to mankind, that it 
seemed as though he had been talking with the 
angels, and had imbibed a portion of their wisdom 
unawares. It was visible in the calm and well-con- 
sidered beneficence of his daily life, the quiet stream 
of which had made a wide green margin all along 
its course. Not a day passed by that the world 
was not the better because this man, humble as he 
was, had lived. He never stepped aside from his 
own path, yet would always reach a blessing to his 
neighbor. Almost involuntarily, too, he had be- 
come a preacher. The pure and high simplicity of 
his thought, which, as one of its manifestations, 
took shape in the good deeds that dropped silently 
from his hand, flowed also forth in speech. He ut- 
tered truths that wrought upon and moulded the 
lives of those who heard him. His auditors, it may 
be, never suspected that Ernest, their own neighbor 
and familiar friend, was more than an ordinary 
man ; least of all did Ernest himself suspect it ; 
but, inevitably as the murmur of a rivulet, came 
thoughts out of his mouth that no other human 
lips had spoken. 

When the people's minds had had a little time to 
cool, they were ready enough to acknowledge their 
mistake in imagining a similarity between General 
Blood-and-Thunder's truculent physiognomy and 
the benign visage on the mountain-side. But now, 
again, there were reports and many paragraphs in 
the newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the 
Great Stone Face had appeared upon the broad 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 49 

shoulders of a certain eminent statesman. He, like 
Mr. Gathergold and Old Blood-and-Thunder, was a 
native of the valley, but had left it in his early days, 
and taken up the trades of law and politics. Instead 
of the rich man's wealth and the warrior's sword, 
he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both 
together. So wonderfully eloquent was he, that 
whatever he might choose to say, his auditors had 
no choice but to believe him ; wrong looked like 
right, and right like wrong ; for when it pleased 
him he could make a kind of illuminated fog with 
his mere breath, and obscure the natural daylight 
with it. His tongue, indeed, was a magic instru- 
ment ; sometimes it rumbled like the thunder ; 
sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music. It 
was the blast of war, — the song of peace ; and it 
seemed to have a heart in it, when there was no 
such matter. In good truth, he was a wondrous 
man ; and when his tongue had acquired him all 
other imaginable success, — when it had been heard 
in halls of state, and in the courts of princes and 
potentates, — after it had made him known all over 
the world, even as a voice crying from shore to 
shore, — it finally persuaded his countrymen to 
select him for the Presidency. Before this time, 

— indeed, as soon as he began to grow celebrated, 

— his admirers had found out the resemblance be- 
tween him and the Great Stone Face ; and so much 
were they struck by it that throughout the country 
this distinguished gentleman was known by the 
name of Old Stony Phiz. The phrase was cou- 

4 



50 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

sidered as giving a highly favorable aspect to his 
political prospects; for, as is likewise the case with 
the Popedom, nobody ever becomes President with- 
out taking a name other than his own. 

While his friends were doing their best to make 
him President, Old Stony Phiz, as he was called, 
set out on a visit to the valley where he was born. 
Of course, he had no other object than to shake 
hands with his fellow-citizens, and neither thought 
nor cared about any effect which his progress 
through the country might have upon the election. 
Magnificent preparations were made to receive the 
illustrious statesman ; a cavalcade of horsemen set 
forth to meet him at the boundary line of the State, 
and all the people left their business and gathered 
along the wayside to see him pass. Among these 
was Ernest. Though more than once disappointed, 
as we have seen, he had such a hopeful and confid- 
ing nature, that he was always ready to believe in 
whatever seemed beautiful and good. He kept his 
heart continually open, and thus was sure to catch 
the blessing from on high, when it should come. 
So now again, as buoyantly as ever, he went forth 
to behold the likeness of the Great Stone Face. 

The cavalcade came prancing along the road, 
with a great clattering of hoofs and a mighty cloud 
of dust, which rose up so dense and high that the 
visage of the mountain-side was completely hidden 
from Ernest's eyes. All the great men of the 
neighborhood were there on horseback ; militia offi- 
cers, in uniform ; the member of Congress ; the 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 51 

sheriff of the county ; the editors of newspapers ; 
and many a farmer, too, had mounted his patient 
steed, with his Sunday coat upon his back. It 
really was a very brilliant spectacle, especially as 
there were numerous banners flaunting over the 
cavalcade, on some of which were gorgeous portraits 
of the illustrious statesman and the Great Stone 
Face, smiling familiarly at one another, like two 
brothers. If the pictures were to be trusted, the 
mutual resemblance, it must be confessed, was mar- 
vellous. We must not forget to mention that there 
was a band of music, which made the echoes of the 
mountains ring and reverberate with the loud tri- 
umph of its strains ; so that airy and soul- thrilling 
melodies broke out among all the heights and hol- 
lows, as if every nook of his native valley had 
found a voice to welcome the distinguished guest. 
But the grandest effect was when the far-off moun- 
tain precipice flung back the music ; for then the 
Great Stone Face itself seemed to be swelling the 
triumphant chorus, in acknowledgment that, at 
length, the man of prophecy was come. 

All this while the people were throwing up their 
hats and shouting, with enthusiasm so contagious 
that the heart of Ernest kindled up, and he likewise 
threw up his hat, and shouted, as loudly as the 
loudest, " Huzza for the great man ! Huzza for 
Old Stony Phiz ! " But as yet he had not seen 
him. 

" Here he is, now ! " cried those who stood near 
Ernest. * There ! There ! Look at Old Stony 



52 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

Phiz and then at the Old Man of the Mountain, and 
see if they are not as like as two twin-brothers ! " 

In the midst of all this gallant array, came an 
open barouche, drawn by four white horses ; and in 
the barouche, with his massive head uncovered, sat 
the illustrious statesman, Old Stony Phiz himself. 

" Confess it," said one of Ernest's neighbors to 
him, " the Great Stone Face has met its match at 
last ! " 

Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse 
of the countenance which was bowing and smiling 
from the barouche, Ernest did fancy that there was 
a resemblance between it and the old familiar face 
upon the mountain-side. The_brow, with its mas- 
sive depth and loftiness, and all the other features, 
indeed, were boldly and strongly hewn, as if in em- 
ulation of a more than heroic, of a Titanic model. 
But the sublimity and stateliness, the grand expres- 
sion of a divine sympathy, that illuminated the 
mountain visage, and etherealized its ponderous 
granite substance into spirit, might here be sought 
in vain. Something had been originally left out, or 
had departed. And therefore the marvellously 
gifted statesman had always a weary gloom in the 
deep caverns of his eyes, as of a child that has out- 
grown its playthings, or a man of mighty faculties 
and little aims, whose life, with all its high per- 
formances, was vague and empty, because no high 
purpose had endowed it with reality. 

Still Ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow 
into his side, and pressing him for an answer. 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 53 

" Confess ! confess ! Is not he the very picture 
of your Old Man of the Mountain ? " 

" No ! " said Ernest, bluntly, " I see little or no 
likeness." 

" Then so much the worse for the Great Stone 
Face ! " answered his neighbor ; and again he set 
up a shout for Old Stony Phiz. 

But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost 
despondent ; for this was the saddest of his disap- 
pointments, to behold a man who might have ful- 
filled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. 
Meantime, the cavalcade, the banners, the music, 
and the barouches swept past him, with the vocif- 
erous crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle 
down, and the Great Stone Face to be revealed 
again, with the grandeur that it had worn for un- 
told centuries. 

" Lo, here I am, Ernest ! " the benign lips seemed 
to say. " I have waited longer than thou, and am 
not yet weary. Fear not ; the man will come." 

The years hurried onward, treading in their haste 
on one another's heels. And now they began to 
bring white hairs, and scatter them over the head of 
Ernest ; they made reverend wrinkles across his fore- 
head, and furrows in his cheeks. He was an aged 
man. But not in vain had he grown old : more than 
the white hairs on his head were the sage thoughts 
in his mind ; his wrinkles and furrows were inscrip- 
tions that Time had graved, and in which he had 
written legends of wisdom that had been tested by 
the tenor of a life. And Ernest had ceased to be 



54 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the 
fame which so many seek, and made him known in 
the great world, beyond the limits of the valley in 
which he had dwelt so quietly. College professors, 
and even the active men of cities, came from far to 
see and converse with Ernest ; for the report had 
gone abroad that this simple husbandman had ideas 
unlike those of other men, not gained from books, 
but of a higher tone, — a tranquil and familiar maj- 
esty, as if he had been talking with the angels as 
his daily friends. Whether it were sage, statesman, 
or philanthropist, Ernest received these visitors 
with the gentle sincerity that had characterized him 
from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of what- 
ever came uppermost, or lay deepest in his heart or 
their own. While they talked together his face 
would kindle, unawares, and shine upon them, as 
with a mild evening light. Pensive with the ful- 
ness of such discourse, his guests took leave and 
went their way ; and passing up the valley, paused 
to look at the Great Stone Face, imagining that 
they had seen its likeness in a human countenance, 
but could not remember where. 

While Ernest had been growing up and growing 
old, a bountiful Providence had granted a new poet 
to this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the 
valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at 
a distance from that romantic region, pouring out 
his sweet music amid the bustle and din of cities. 
Often, however, did the mountains which had been 
familiar to him in his childhood lift their snowy 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 55 

peaks into the clear atmosphere of his poetry. 
Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten, for 
the poet had celebrated it in an ode which was 
grand enough to have been uttered by its own ma- 
jestic lips. This man of genius, we may say, had 
come down from heaven with wonderful endow- 
ments. If he sang of a mountain, the eyes of all 
mankind beheld a mightier grandeur reposing on its 
breast, or soaring to its summit, than had before 
been seen there. If his theme were a lovely lake, a 
celestial smile had now been thrown over it, to 
gleam forever on its surface. If it were the vast 
old sea, even the deep immensity of its dread bosom 
seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by the 
emotions of the song. Thus the world assumed an- 
other and a better aspect from the hour that the 
poet blessed it with his happy eyes. The Creator 
had bestowed him, as the last best touch to his own 
handiwork. Creation was not finished till the poet 
came to interpret, and so complete it. 

The effect was no less high and beautiful when 
his human brethren were the subject of his verse. 
The man or woman, sordid with the common dust 
of life, who crossed his daily path, and the little 
child who played in it, were glorified if he beheld 
them in his mood of poetic faith. He showed the 
golden links of the great chain that intertwined 
them with an angelic kindred ; he brought out the 
hiddeii traits of a celestial birth that made them 
worthy of such kin. Some, indeed, there were, 
who thought to show the soundness of their judg- 



56 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

ment by affirming that all the beauty and dignity 
of the natural world existed only in the poet's 
fancy. Let such men speak for themselves, who 
undoubtedly appear to have been spawned forth 
by Nature with a contemptuous bitterness ; she 
having plastered them up out of her refuse stuff, 
after all the swine were made. As respects all 
things else, the poet's ideal was the truest truth. 

The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. 
He read them after his customary toil, seated on 
the bench before his cottage door, where for such 
a length of time he had filled his repose with 
thought, by gazing at the Great Stone Face. And 
now as he read stanzas that caused the soul to 
thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast 
countenance beaming on him so benignantly. 

" O majestic friend," he murmured, addressing 
the Great Stone Face, " is not this man worthy to 
resemble thee ? " 

The Face seemed to smile, but answered not a 
word. 

Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt 
so far away, had not only heard of Ernest, but 
had meditated much upon his character, until he 
deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man, 
whose untaught wisdom walked hand in hand with 
the noble simplicity of his life. One summer 
morning, therefore, he took passage by the rail- 
road, and, in the decline of the afternoon, alighted 
from the cars at no great distance from Ernest's 
cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 57 

been the palace of Mr. Gathergold, was close at 
hand, but the poet, with his carpet-bag on his arm, 
inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was re- 
solved to be accepted as his guest. 

Approaching the "door, he there found the good 
old man, holding a volume in his hand, which al- 
ternately he read, and then, with a finger between 
the leaves, looked lovingly at the Great Stone 
Face. 

" Good evening," said the poet. " Can you give 
a traveller a night's lodgiug? " 

" Willingly," answered Ernest ; and then he 
added, smiling, " Methinks I never saw the Great 
Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger." 

The poet sat down on the bench beside him, 
and he and Ernest talked together. Often had the 
poet held intercourse with the wittiest and the 
wisest, but never before with a man like Ernest, 
whose thoughts and feelings gushed up with such 
a natural freedom, and who made great truths so 
familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, 
as had been so often said, seemed to have wrought 
with him at his labor in the fields ; angels seemed 
to have sat with him by the fireside ; and, dwelling 
with angels as friend with friends, he had imbibed 
the sublimity of their ideas, and imbued it with the 
sweet and lowly charm of household words. So 
thought the poet. And Ernest, on the other hand, 
was moved and agitated by the living images 
which the poet flung out of his mind, and which 
peopled all the air about the cottage door with 



58 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. The 
sympathies of these two men instructed them with 
a profounder sense than either could have attained 
alone. Their minds accorded into one strain, and 
made delightful music which neither of them could 
have claimed as all his own, nor distinguished his 
own share from the other's. They led one another, 
as it were, into a high pavilion of their thoughts, 
so remote, and hitherto so dim, that they had never 
entered it before, and so beautiful that they desired 
to be there always. 

As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that 
the Great Stone Face was bending forward to listen 
too. He gazed earnestly into the poet's glowing 
eyes. 

" Who are you, my strangely gifted guest ? " he 
said. 

The poet laid his finger on the volume that Er- 
nest had been reading. 

" You have read these poems," said he. " You 
know me, then, — for I wrote them." 

Again, and still more earnestly than before, 
Ernest examined the poet's features ; then turned 
towards the Great Stone Face ; then back, with an 
uncertain aspect, to his guest. But his countenance 
fell ; he shook his head, and sighed. 

" Wherefore are you sad ? " inquired the poet 

" Because," replied Ernest, " all through life I 
have awaited the fulfilment of a prophecy ; and, 
when I read these poems, I hoped that it might be 
fulfilled in vou." 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 59 

" You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smil- 
ing, " to find in me the likeness of the Great Stone 
Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly 
with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, 
and Old Stony Phiz. Yes, Ernest, it is my doom. 
You must add my name to the illustrious three, 
and record another failure of your hopes. For — 
in shame and sadness do I speak it, Ernest — I am 
not worthy to be typified by yonder benign and 
majestic image." 

" And why ? " asked Ernest. He pointed to the 
volume. " Are not those thoughts divine ? " 

" They have a strain of the Divinity," replied 
the poet. " You can hear in them the far-off echo 
of a heavenly song. But my life,, dear Ernest, 
has not corresponded with my thought. I have 
had grand dreams, but they have been only dreams, 
because I have lived — and that, too, by my own 
choice — among poor and mean realities. Some- 
times even — shall I dare to say it ? — I lack faith 
in the grandeur, the beauty, and the goodness, 
which my own works are said to have made more 
evident in nature and in human life. Why, then, 
pure seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou 
hope to find me in yonder image of the divine? " 

The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim 
with tears. So, likewise, were those of Ernest. 

At the hour of sunset, as had long been his fre- 
quent custom, Ernest was to discourse to an as- 
semblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the 
open air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still talk- 



60 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

ing together as they went along, proceeded to the 
spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with 
a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which 
was relieved by the pleasant foliage of many creep- 
ing plants, that made a tapestry for the naked 
rock, by hanging their festoons from all its rugged 
angles. At a small elevation above the ground, 
set in a rich framework of verdure, there appeared 
a niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure, 
with freedom for such gestures as spontaneously 
accompany earnest thought and genuine emotion. 
Into this natural pulpit Ernest ascended, and 
threw a look of familiar kindness around upon his 
audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined upon the 
grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing 
sunshine falling obliquely over them, and mingling 
its subdued cheerfulness with the solemnity of a 
grove of ancient trees, beneath and amid the boughs 
of which the golden rays were constrained to pass. 
In another direction was seen the Great Stone 
Face, with the same cheer, combined with the 
same solemnity, in its benignant aspect. 

Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of 
what was in his heart and mind. His words had 
power, because they accorded with his thoughts ; 
and his thoughts had reality and depth, because 
they harmonized with the life which he had always 
lived. It was not mere breath that this preacher 
uttered ; they were the words of life, because a life 
of good deeds and holy love was melted into them. 
Pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved into this 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 61 

precious draught. The poet, as he listened, felt 
that the being and character of Ernest were a no- 
bler strain of poetry than he had ever written. 
His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed reveren- 
tially at the venerable man, and said within himself 
that never was there an aspect so worthy of a 
prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful 
countenance, with the glory of white hair diffused 
about it. At a distance, but distinctly to be seen, 
high up in the golden light of the setting sun, ap- 
peared the Great Stone Face, with hoary mists 
around it, like the white hairs around the brow of 
Ernest. Its look of grand beneficence seemed to 
embrace the world. 

At that moment, in sympathy with a thought 
which he was about to utter, the face of Ernest as- 
sumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with 
benevolence, that the poet, 1 by an irresistible im- 
pulse, threw his arms aloft, and shouted, — 

" Behold ! Behold ! Ernest is himself the like- 
ness of the Great Stone Face ! " 

Then all the people looked, and saw that what 
the deep-sighted poet said was true. The prophecy 
was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what he 
had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly 

1 That the poet should have been the one to discover the re- 
semblance accords with the conception of the poet himself in 
this little apologue. Poetic insight is still separable from in- 
tegrity of character, and it was quite possible for this poet to 
see the ideal beauty in another, while conscious of his own de- 
fect. The humility of Ernest, as the last word of the story, 
completes the certainty of the likeness. 



62 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

homeward, still hoping that some wiser and better 
man than himself would by and by appear, bearing 
a resemblance to the Great Stone Face. 



III. 

DROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE. 

[In his preface to The Marble Faun Hawthorne 
speaks of the difficulty of reproducing American 
life in romance, but in the story of Drowne' s 
Wooden Image he has within narrow limits achieved 
a more difficult task, that of translating a Greek 
myth into the Yankee vernacular, without impairing 
the native flavor. In the course of the -story he 
laughingly refers to the myth of Pygmalion, the 
statuary of Cyprus, who shunned the society of 
women, but became so enamored of one of his own 
beautiful creations that he besought Venus to give 
her life. The same theme, with a wider and more 
subtle application, reappears in this little story, and 
it is interesting to see how Hawthorne has avoided 
the merely grotesque, and by the sincerity of the 
carver has given dignity to the illusion. The per- 
sonages of the story appear in history. There was 
a Drowne, who was a carver, and whose work, as 
Hawthorne reminds us, was to be seen in Boston. 
He is known as Deacon Shem Drowne, and died in 
1774. From several allusions in the story, the 
time may be made to be in King George II.'s reign, 



DROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE. 63 

say about 1760. The poet, William Morris, has 
told the story of Pygmalion and the Image in The 
Earthly Paradise.^ 



One sunshiny morning, in the good old times of 
the town of Boston, a young carver in wood, well 
known by the name of Drowne, stood contemplat- 
ing a large oaken log, which it was his purpose to 
convert into the figure-head of a vessel. • And while 
he discussed within his own mind what sort of shape 
or similitude it were well to bestow upon this ex- 
cellent piece of timber, there came into Drowne's 
workshop a certain Captain Hunnewell, owner and 
commander of the good brig called the Cynosure, 
which had just returned from her first voyage to 
Fayal. 

" Ah ! that will do, Drowne, that will do ! " cried 
the jolly captaiu, tapping the log with his rattan. 
" I bespeak this very piece of oak for the figure- 
head of the Cynosure. She has shown herself the 
sweetest craft that ever floated, and I mean to deco- 
rate her prow with the handsomest image that the 
skill of man can cut out of timber. And, Drowne, 
you are the fellow to execute it." 

" You give me more credit than I deserve, Cap- 
tain Hunnewell," said the carver, modestly, yet as 
one conscious of eminence in his art. " But, for 
the sake of the good brig, I stand ready to do my 
best. And which of these designs do you prefer ? 
Here," — pointing to a staring, half-length figure, 



64 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

in a white wig and scarlet coat, — " here is an ex- 
cellent model, the likeness of our gracious king. 
Here is the valiant Admiral Vernon. 1 Or, if you 
prefer a female figure, what say you to Britannia 
with the trident ? " 

"All very fine, Drowne ; all very fine," an- 
swered the mariner. " But as nothing like the 
brig ever swam the ocean, so I am determined she 
shall have such a figure-head as old Neptune never 
saw in his life. And what is more, as there is a 
secret in the matter, you must pledge your credit 
not to betray it." 

" Certainly," said Drowne, marvelling, however, 
what possible mystery there could be in reference 
to an affair- so open, of necessity, to the inspection 
of all the world as the figure-head of a vessel. 
" You may depend, Captain, on my being as secret 
as the nature of the case will permit." 

Captain Hunnewell then took Drowne by the 
button, and communicated his wishes in so low a 
tone that it would be unmannerly to repeat what 
was evidently intended for the carver's private ear. 
We shall, therefore, take the opportunity to give 
the reader a few desirable particulars about Drowne 
himself. 

1 Edward Vernon, 1684-1757, was a distinguished English 
admiral. He saw a good deal of service in the West Indies, and 
in 1739 took the town of Porto Bello ; and as the affair made 
much noise and there was a brisk trade between Boston and the 
West Indies, we may guess that Drowne found Admiral Vernon 
a popular model for figure-heads. There was a tavern called 
the Admiral Vernon on the lower corner of State Street and 
Merchant's Row, Boston. 



BROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE. 65 

He was the first American who is known to have 
attempted — in a very humble line, it is true — 
that art in which we can now reckon so many- 
names already distinguished, or rising to distinc- 
tion. From his earliest boyhood he had exhibited 
a knack, — for it would be too proud a word to call 
it genius, — a knack, therefore, for the imitation of 
the human figure in whatever material came most 
readily to hand. The snows of a New England 
winter had often supplied him with a species of 
marble as dazzlingly white, at least, as the Parian 
or the Carrara, and if less durable, yet sufficiently 
so to correspond with any claims to permanent ex- 
istence possessed by the boy's frozen statues. Yet 
they won admiration from maturer judges than his 
school-fellows, and were, indeed, remarkably clever, 
though destitute of the native warmth that might 
have made the snow melt beneath his hand. As he 
advanced in life, the young man adopted pine and 
oak as eligible materials for the display of his skill, 
which now began to bring him a return of solid sil- 
ver as well as the empty praise that had been an 
apt reward enough for his productions of evanes- 
cent snow. He became noted for carving orna- 
mental pump-heads, and wooden urns for gate-posts, 
and decorations, more grotesque than fanciful, for 
mantel-pieces. Ko apothecary would have deemed 
himself in the way of obtaining custom, without 
setting up a gilded mortar, if not a head of Galen 
or Hippocrates, from the skilful hand of Drown e. 

But the great scope of his business lay in the 

5 



66 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

manufacture of figure-heads for vessels. Whether 
it were. the monarch himself, or some famous Brit- 
ish admiral or general, or the governor of the prov- 
ince, or perchance the favorite daughter of the ship- 
owner, there the image stood above the prow, 
decked out in gorgeous colors, magnificently gilded, 
and staring the whole world out of countenance, as 
if from an innate consciousness of its own supe- 
riority. These specimens of native sculpture had 
crossed the sea in all directions, and been not 
ignobly noticed among the crowded shipping of the 
Thames, and wherever else the hardy mariners of 
New England had pushed their adventures. It must 
be confessed that a family likeness pervaded these 
respectable progeny of Drowne's skill ; that the- be- 
nign countenance of the king resembled those of 
his subjects, and that Miss Peggy Hobart, the mer- 
chant's daughter, bore a remarkable similitude to 
Britannia, Victory, and other ladies of the allegoric 
sisterhood ; and, finally, that they all had a kind 
of wooden aspect, which proved an intimate rela- 
tionship with the unshaped blocks of timber in the 
carver's workshop. But at least there was no in- 
considerable skill of hand, nor a deficiency of any 
attribute to render them really works of art, except 
that deep quality, be it of soul or intellect, which 
bestows life upon the lifeless and warmth upon the 
cold, and which, had r it been present, would have 
made Drowne's wooden image instinct with spirit. 

The captain of the Cynosure had- now finished 
his instructions. 



BROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE. 67 

" And, Drowne," said he, impressively, " you 
must lay aside all other business and set about this 
forthwith. And as to the price, only do the job 
in first-rate style, and you shall settle that point 
yourself." 

" Very well, Captain," answered the carver, who 
looked grave and somewhat perplexed, yet had a 
sort of smile upon his visage ; " depend upon it, I '11 
do my utmost to satisfy you." 

From that moment the men of taste about Long 
Wharf and the Town Dock who were wont to show 
their love for the arts by frequent visits to Drowne's 
workshop, and admiration of his wooden images, 
began to be sensible of a mystery in the carver's 
conduct. Often he was absent in the daytime. 
Sometimes, as might be judged by gleams of light 
from the shop-windows, he was at work until a late 
hour of the evening ; although neither knock nor 
voice, on such occasions, could gain admittance for 
a visitor, or elicit any word of response. Nothing 
remarkable, however, was observed in the shop at 
those hours when it was thrown open. A fine piece 
of timber, indeed, which Drowne was known to have 
reserved for some work of especial dignity, was seen 
to be gradually assuming shape. What shape it 
was destined ultimately to take was a problem to 
his friends and a point on which the carver himself 
preserved a rigid silence. But day after day, though 
Drowne was seldom noticed in the act of work- 
ing upon it, this rude form began to be developed 
until it became evident to all observers that a fe- 



68 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

male figure was growing into mimic life. At each 
new visit they beheld a larger pile of wooden chips 
and a nearer approximation to something beautiful. 
It seemed as if the hamadryad of the oak had shel- 
tered herself from the unimaginative world within 
the heart of her native tree, and that it was only 
necessary to remove the strange shapelessness that 
had incrusted her, and reveal the grace and loveli- 
ness of a divinity. Imperfect as the design, the at- 
titude, the costume, and especially the face of the 
image still remained, there was already an effect 
that drew the eye from the wooden cleverness of 
Drown e's earlier productions and fixed it upon the 
tantalizing mystery of this new project. 

Copley, 1 the celebrated painter, then a young 
man and a resident of Boston, came one day to 
visit Drown e ; for he had recognized so much of 
moderate ability in the carver as to induce him, in 
the dearth of professional sympathy, to cultivate 
his acquaintance. On entering the shop the art- 
ist glanced at the inflexible image of king, com- 
mander, dame, and allegory that stood around, on 
the best of which might have been bestowed the 
questionable praise that it looked as if a living man 
had here been changed to wood, and that not only 
the physical, but the intellectual and spiritual part, 
partook of the stoli'd transformation. But in not a 
single instance did it seem as if the wood were im- 
bibing the ethereal essence of humanity. What a 
wide distinction is here ! and how far would the 

1 John Singleton Copley was born in Boston in 1737. 



DROWNE'S W.OODEN IMAGE. 69 

slightest portion of the latter merit have outvalued 
the utmost degree of the former ! 

" My friend Drowne," said Copley, smiling to 
himself, but alluding to the mechanical and wooden 
cleverness that so invariably distinguished the im- 
ages, " you are really a remarkable person ! I have 
seldom met with a man in your line of business 
that could do so much ; for one other touch might 
make this figure of General Wolfe, 1 for instance, 
a breathing and intelligent human creature." 

" You would have me think that you are prais- 
ing me highly, Mr. Copley," answered Drowne, 
turning his back upon Wolfe's image in apparent 
disgust. " But there has come a light into my mind. 
I know, what you know as well, that the one touch 
which you speak of as deficient is the only one 
that would be truly valuable, and that without it 
these works of mine are no better than worthless 
abortions. There is the same difference between 
them and the works of an inspired artist as between 
a sign-post daub and one of your best pictures." 

" This is strange," cried Copley, looking him in 
the face, which now, as the painter fancied, had a 
singular depth of intelligence, though hitherto it 
had not given him greatly the advantage over his 
own family of wooden images. " What has come 
over you ? How is it that, possessing the idea which 
you have now uttered, you should produce only 
such works as these ? " 

1 General "Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, was killed on the Plains 
of Abraham, September 13, 1759. 



70 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

The carver smiled, but made no reply. Copley- 
turned again to the images, conceiving that the 
sense of deficiency which Drown e had just ex- 
pressed, and which is so rare in a merely mechan- 
ical character, must surely imply a genius, the to- 
kens of which had heretofore been overlooked. 
But no ; there was not a trace of it. He was about 
to withdraw when his eyes chanced to fall upon a 
half-developed figure which lay in a corner of the 
workshop, surrounded by scattered chips of oak. 
It arrested him at once. 

" What is here ? Who has done this ? " he broke 
out, after contemplating it in speechless astonish- 
ment for an instant. " Here is the divine, the life- 
giving touch. What inspired hand is beckoning 
this wood to arise and live ? Whose work is this ? " 

" No man's work," replied Drowne. " The fig- 
ure lies within that block of oak, and it is my busi-* 
ness to find it." 

" Drowne," said the true artist, grasping the 
carver fervently by the hand, " you are a man of 
genius ! " 

As Copley departed, happening to glance back- 
ward from the threshold, he beheld Drowne bend- 
ing over the half-created shape, and stretching forth 
his arms as if he would have embraced and drawn it 
to his heart ; while, had such a miracle been possible, 
his countenance expressed passion enough to com- 
municate warmth and sensibility to the lifeless oak. 

" Strange enough ! " said the artist to himself. 
" Who would have looked for a modern Pygmalion 
in the person of a Yankee mechanic ! " 



DROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE. 71 

As yet, the image was but vague in its outward 
presentment ; so that, as in the cloud-shapes around 
the western sun, the observer rather felt, or was led 
to imagine, than really saw what was intended by it. 
Day by day, however, the work assumed greater 
precision, and settled its irregular and misty outline 
into distincter grace and beauty. The general de- 
sign was now obvious to the common eye. It was 
a female figure, in what appeared to be a foreign 
dress ; the gown being laced over the bosom, and 
opening in front so as to disclose a skirt or petti- 
coat, the folds and inequalities of which were ad- 
mirably represented in the oaken substance. She 
wore a hat of singular gracefulness, and abundantly 
laden with flowers, such as never grew in the rude 
soil of New England, but which, with all their fan- 
. ciful luxuriance, had a natural truth that it seemed 
impossible for the most fertile imagination to have at- 
tained without copying from real prototypes. There 
were several little appendages to this dress, such as 
a fan, a pair of earrings, a chain about the neck, 
a watch in the bosom, and a ring upon the finger, 
all of which would have been deemed beneath the 
dignity of sculpture. They were put on, how- 
ever, with as much taste as'a lovely woman might 
have shown in her attire, and could therefore have 
shocked none but a judgment spoiled by artistic 

rules. 

The face was still imperfect ; but gradually, by 
a magic touch, intelligence and sensibility bright- 
ened through the features, with all the effect of 



72 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

light gleaming forth from within the solid oak. 
The face became alive. It was a beautiful, though 
not precisely regular, and somewhat haughty as- 
pect, but with a certain piquancy about the eyes 
and mouth, which, of all expressions, would have 
seemed the most impossible to throw over a wooden 
countenance. And now, so far as carving went, 
this wonderful production was complete. 

" Drowne," said Copley, who had hardly missed 
a single day in his visits to the carver's workshop, 
" if this work were in marble it would make you 
famous at once ; nay, I would almost affirm that it 
would make an era in the art. It is as ideal as an 
antique statue, and yet as real as any lovely wom- 
an whom one meets at a fireside or in the street. 
But I trust you do not mean to desecrate this ex- 
quisite creature with paint, like those staring kings, 
and admirals yonder ? " 

" Not paint her ! " exclaimed Captain Hunne- 
well, who stood by ; " not paint the figure-head of 
the Cynosure ! And what sort of a figure should I 
cut in a foreign port with such an unpainted oaken 
stick as this over my prow ! She must, and she 
shall, be painted to the life, from the topmost 
flower in her hat down to the silver spangles on 
her slippers." 

" Mr. Copley," said Drowne, quietly, " I know 
nothing of marble statuary, and nothing of the 
sculptor's rules of art ; but of this wooden image, 
this work of my hands, this creature of my heart," 
— and here his voice faltered and choked in a very 



DROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE. 73 

singular manner, — " of this — of her — I may say- 
that I know something. A wellspring of inward 
wisdom gushed within me as I wrought upon the 
oak with my whole strength, and soul, and faith. 
Let others do what they may with marble, and 
adopt what rules they choose. If I can produce 
my desired effect by painted wood, those rules are 
not for me, and I have a right to disregard them." 

" The very spirit of genius," muttered Copley 
to himself. " How otherwise should this carver feel 
himself entitled to transcend all rules, and make 
me ashamed of quoting them ? " 

He looked earnestly at Drowne, and again saw 
that expression of human love which, in a spiritual 
sense, as the artist could not help imagining was the 
secret of the life that had been breathed into this 
block of wood. 

The carver, still in the same secrecy that marked 
all his operations upon this mysterious image, pro- 
ceeded to paint the habiliments in their proper col- 
ors, and the countenance with nature's red and 
white. When all was finished he threw open his 
workshop, and admitted the towns-people to behold 
what he had done. Most persons, at their first en- 
trance, felt impelled to remove their hats, and pay 
such reverence as was due to the richly dressed and 
beautiful young lady who seemed to stand in a cor- ' 
ner of the room, with oaken chips and shavings 
scattered at her feet. Then came a sensation of 
fear; as if, not being actually human, yet so like 
humanity, she must therefore be something preter- 



74 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

natural. There was, in truth, an indefinable air 
and expression that might reasonably induce the 
query, Who and from what sphere this daughter of 
the oak should be? The strange, rich flowers of 
Eden on her head ; the complexion, so much deeper 
and more brilliant than those of our native beau- 
ties ; the foreign, as it seemed, and fantastic garb, 
yet not too fantastic to be worn decorously in the 
street ; the delicately wrought embroidery of the 
skirt ; the broad gold chain about her neck ; the cu- 
rious ring upon her finger ; the fan, so exquisitely 
sculptured in open-work, and painted to resemble 
pearl and ebony ; where could Drowne, in his sober 
walk of life, have beheld the vision here so match- 
lessly embodied ! And then her face ! In the dark 
eyes and around the voluptuous mouth there played 
a look made up of pride, coquetry, and a gleam of 
mirthfulness, which impressed Copley with the idea 
that the image was secretly enjoying the perplexing 
admiration of himself and other beholders. 

" And will you," said he to the carver, " permit 
this masterpiece to become the figure-head of a 
vessel ? Give the honest captain yonder figure of 
Britannia, — it will answer his purpose far better, 
— and send this fairy queen to England, where, 
for aught I know, it may bring you a thousand 
pounds." 

" I have not wrought it for money," said 
Drowne. 

" What sort of a fellow is this ! " thought Copley. 
' u A Yankee, and throw away the chance of making 



BROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE. 75 

his fortune ! He has gone mad. ; and thence has 
come this gleam of genius." 

There was still further proof of Drowne's lunacy, 
if credit were due to the rumor that he had been seen 
kneeling at the feet of the oaken lady, and gazing 
with a lover's passionate ardor into the face that 
his own hands had created. The bigots of the day 
hinted that it would be no matter of surprise if an 
evil spirit were allowed to enter this beautiful form 
and seduce the carver to destruction. 

The fame of the image spread far and wide. The 
inhabitants visited it so universally that after a few 
days of exhibition there was hardly an old man or 
a child who had not become minutely familiar with 
its aspect. Even had the story of Drowne's wooden 
image ended here, its celebrity might have been 
prolonged for many years by the reminiscences of 
those who looked upon it in their childhood, and 
saw nothing else so beautiful in after life. But the 
town was now astounded by an event the narrative 
of which has formed itself into one of the most 
singular legends that are yet to be met with in the 
traditionary chimney-corners of the New England 
metropolis, where old men and women sit dreaming 
of the past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of 
the present and the future. 

One fine morning, just before the departure of 
the Cynosure on her second voyage to Fayal, the 
commander of that gallant vessel was seen to issue 
from his residence in Hanover Street. He was sty- 
lishly dressed in a blue broadcloth coat, with gold- 



76 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

lace at the seams and button-holes, an embroidered 
scarlet waistcoat, a triangular hat, with a loop and 
broad binding of gold, and wore a silver-hilted 
hanger at his side. But the good captain might 
have been arrayed in the robes of a prince or the 
rags of a beggar, without in either case attracting 
notice, while obscured by such a companion as now 
leaned on his arm. The people in the street 
started, rubbed their eyes, and either leaped aside 
from their path, or stood as if transfixed to wood or 
marble in astonishment. 

" Do you see it ? — do you see it ? " cried one, 
with tremulous eagerness. " It is the very same ! " 

" The same ? " answered another, who had ar- 
rived in town only the night before. " Who do 
you mean ? I see only a sea-captain in his shore- 
going clothes, and a young lady in a foreign habit, 
with a bunch of beautiful flowers in her hat. On 
my word, she is as fair and bright a damsel as my 
eyes have looked on this many a clay ! " 

" Yes ; the same ! — the very same ! " repeated 
the other. " Drowne's wooden image has come to 
life!" 

Here was a miracle indeed ! Yet, illuminated by 
the sunshine, or darkened by the alternate shade of 
the houses, and with its garments fluttering lightly 
in the morning breeze, there passed the image 
along the street. It was exactly and minutely the 
shape, the garb, and the face which the towns-peo- 
ple had so recently thronged to see and admire. 
Not a rich flower upon her head, not a single leaf, 



DROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE. 77 

but had had its prototype in Drowne's wooden 
workmanship, although now their fragile grace had 
become flexible, and was shaken by every footstep 
that the wearer made. The broad gold chain upon 
the neck was identical with the one represented on 
the image, and glistened with the motion imparted 
by the rise and fall of the bosom which it decorated. 
A real diamond sparkled on her finger. In her 
right hand she bore a pearl and ebony fan, which 
she flourished with a fantastic and bewitching co- 
quetry that was likewise expressed in all her move- 
ments as well as in the style of her beauty and the 
attire that so well harmonized with it. The face, 
with its brilliant depth of complexion, had the same 
piquancy of mirthful mischief that was fixed upon 
the countenance of the image, but which was here 
varied and continually shifting, yet always essen- 
tially the same, like the sunny gleam upon a bub- 
bling fountain. On the whole, there was something 
so airy and yet so real in the figure, and withal so 
perfectly did it represent Drowne's image, that peo- 
ple knew not whether to suppose the magic wood 
etherealized into a spirit or warmed and softened 
into an actual woman. 

" One thing is certain," muttered a Puritan of 
the old stamp, " Drowne has sold himself to the 
Devil ; and doubtless this gay Captain Hunnewell 
is a party to the bargain." 

" And I," said a young man who overheard him, 
" would almost consent to be the third victim, for 
the liberty of saluting those lovely lips." 



78 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

" And so would I, " said Copley, the painter, 
" for the privilege of taking her picture." 

The image, or the apparition, whichever it might 
be, still escorted by the bold captain, proceeded 
from Hanover Street through some of the cross 
lanes that make this portion of the town so intri- 
cate, to Ann Street, thence into Dock Square, and 
so downward to Drowne's shop, which stood just on 
the water's edge. The crowd still followed, gath- 
ering volume as it rolled along. Never had a 
modern miracle occurred in such broad daylight, 
nor in the presence of such a multitude of wit- 
nesses. The airy image, as if conscious that she 
was the object of the murmurs and disturbance that 
swelled behind her, appeared slightly vexed and 
flustered, yet still in a manner consistent with the 
light vivacity and sportive mischief that were writ- 
ten in her countenance. She was observed to flut- 
ter her fan with such vehement rapidity that the 
elaborate delicacy of its workmanship gave way, 
and it remained broken in her hand. 

Arriving at Drowne's door, while the captain 
threw it open, the marvellous apparition paused an 
instant on the threshold, assuming the very attitude 
of the image, and casting over the crowd that glance 
of sunny coquetry which all remembered on the 
face of the oaken lady. She and her cavalier then 
disappeared. 

" Ah ! " murmured the crowd, drawing a deep 
breath, as with one vast pair of lungs. 

" The world looks darker now that she has van- 
ished," said some of the young men. 



DROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE. 79 

But the aged, whose recollections dated as far 
back as witch times, shook their heads, and hinted 
that our forefathers would have thought it a pious 
deed to burn the daughter of the oak with fire. 

" If she be other than a bubble of the elements," 
exclaimed Copley, " I must look upon her face 
again." 

He accordingly entered the shop ; and there, in 
her usual corner, stood the image, gazing at him, as 
it might seem, with the very same expression of 
mirthful mischief that had been the farewell look of 
the apparition when, but a moment before, she turned 
her face towards the crowd. The carver stood be- 
side his creation, mending the beautiful fan, which 
by some accident was broken in her hand. 1 But 
there was no longer any motion in the lifelike im- 
age, nor any real woman in the workshop, nor even 
the witchcraft of a sunny shadow, that might have 
deluded people's eyes as it flitted along the street. 
Captain Hunnewell, too, had vanished. His hoarse, 
sea-breezy tones, however, were audible on the other 
side of a door that opened upon the water. 

" Sit down in the stern sheets, my lady," said the 
gallant captain. " Come, bear a hand, you lubbers, 
and set us on board in the turning of a minute- 
glass." 

And then was heard the stroke of oars. 

" Drowne," said Copley, with a smile of intelli- 
gence, "you have been a truly fortunate man. 

1 A slight touch to keep in sight the mysterious affinity of 
lady and image. 



80 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

"What painter or statuary ever had such a subject ! 
No wonder that she inspired a genius into you, and 
first created the artist who afterwards created her 
image." 

Drowne looked at him with a visage that bore 
the traces of tears, but from which the light of im- 
agination and sensibility, so recently illuminating 
it, had departed. He was again the mechanical car- 
ver that he had been known to be all his lifetime. 

" I hardly understand what you mean, Mr. Cop- 
ley," said he, putting his hand to his brow. " This 
image ! Can it have been my work ? Well, I 
have wrought it in a kind of dream ; and now that 
I am broad awake I must set about finishing yon- 
der figure of Admiral Vernon." 

And forthwith he employed himself on the stolid 
countenance of one of his wooden progeny, and 
completed it in his own mechanical style, from which 
he was never known afterwards to deviate. He 
followed his business industriously for many years, 
acquired a competence, and in the latter part of his 
life attained to a dignified station in the church, be- 
ing remembered in records and traditions as Deacon 
Drowne, the carver. One of his productions, an 
Indian chief, gilded all over, stood during the bet- 
ter part of a century on the cupola of the Province 
House, bedazzling the eyes of those who looked 
upward, like an angel of the sun. Another work 
of the good deacon's hand — a reduced likeness of 
his friend Captain Hunnewell, holding a telescope 
and quadrant — may be seen to this day, at the cor- 



DR WNE'S WO ODEN IMA GE. 8 1 

ner of Broad and State Streets, serving in the use- 
ful capacity of sign to the shop of a nautical instru- 
ment maker. We know not how to account for the 
inferiority of this quaint old figure as compared 
with the recorded excellence of the Oaken Lady, 
unless on the supposition that in every human spirit 
there is ■ imagination, sensibility, creative power, 
genius, which, according to circumstances, may 
either be developed in this world, or shrouded in a 
mask of dulness until another state of being. To 
our friend Drowne there came a brief season of ex- 
citement, kindled by love. It rendered him a genius 
for that one occasion, but, quenched in disappoint- 
ment, left him again the mechanical carver in wood, 
without the power even of appreciating the work 
that his own hands had wrought. Yet, who can 
doubt that the very highest state to which a human 
spirit can attain, in its loftiest aspirations, is its 
truest and most natural state, and that Drowne was 
more consistent with himself when he wrought the 
admirable figure of the mysterious lady, than when 
he perpetrated a whole progeny of blockheads ? 

There was a rumor in Boston, about this period, 
that a young Portuguese lady of rank, on some oc- 
casion of political or domestic disquietude, had fled 
from her home in Fayal and put herself under the 
protection of Captain Hunnewell, on board of whose 
vessel, and at whose residence, she was sheltered 
until a change of affairs. This fair stranger must 
have been the original of Drowne's Wooden Im- 
age. 



82 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

IV. 
HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 

[The second volume of Twice-Told Tales opens 
with four Legends of the Province House, of which 
Howe's Masquerade is. the first. The introductory 
sketch of the Province House is included in it. The 
story was first published in The United States Maga- 
zine and Democratic Review, May, 1838, when the 
Province House was in the state described in the 
sketch. Nothing remains of it now but a portion of 
the exterior walls, and it is almost completely 
hemmed in by buildings. A history of the Prov- 
ince House and of its occupants will be found in 
Drake's Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of 
Boston. It would be an excellent study to expand 
the historic allusions contained in the procession 
of governors. Hawthorne has characterized these 
personages with great precision.] 



One afternoon, last summer, while walking along 
Washington Street, my eye was attracted by a sign- 
board protruding over a narrow archway, nearly 
opposite the Old South Church. The sign repre- 
sented the front of a stately edifice, which was des- 
ignated as the " Old Province House, kept by 
Thomas Waite." I was glad to be thus reminded of 
a purpose, long entertained, of visiting and ram- 



HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 83 

bling over the mansion of the old royal governors 
of Massachusetts ; and entering the arched pas- 
sage, which penetrated through the middle of a 
brick row of shops, a few steps transported me 
from the busy heart of modern Boston into a small 
and secluded court-yard. One side of this space 
was occupied by the square front of the Province 
House, three stories high, and surmounted by a cu- 
pola, on the top of which a gilded Indian was dis- 
cernible, with his bow bent and his arrow on the 
string, as if aiming at the weathercock on the spire 
of the Old South. The figure has kept this atti- 
tude for seventy years or more, ever since good 
Deacon Drowne, a cunning carver of wood, first 
stationed him on his long sentinel's watch over the 
city. 

The Province House is constructed of brick, 
which seems recently to have been overlaid with a 
coat of light-colored paint. A flight of red free- 
stone steps, fenced in by a balustrade of curiously 
wrought iron, ascends from the court-yard to the 
spacious porch, over which is a balcony, with an 
iron balustrade of similar pattern and workmanship 
to that beneath. These letters and figures — 16 
P. S. 79 — are wrought into the iron-work of the 
balcony, and probably express the date of the edi- 
fice, with the initials of its founder's name. 1 A 
wide door with double leaves admitted me into the 
hall or entry, on the right of which is the entrance 
to the bar-room. 

1 Peter Sargeant, a Boston merchant, who came from London 
in 1667, and was concerned in the overthrow of Andros. 



84 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

It was in this apartment, I presume, that the 
ancient governors held their levees, with vice-regal 
pomp, surrounded by the military men, the council- 
lors, the judges, and other officers of the crown, 
while all the loyalty of the province thronged to do 
them honor. Bat the room, in its present condi- 
tion, cannot boast even of faded magnificence. 
The panelled wainscot is covered with dingy paint, 
and acquires a duskier hue from the deep shadow 
into which the Province House is thrown by the 
brick block that shuts it in from Washington 
Street. A ray of sunshine never visits this apart- 
ment any more than the glare of the festal torches 
which have been extinguished from the era of the 
Revolution. The most venerable and ornamental 
object is a chimney-piece set round with Dutch 
tiles of blue-figured china, representing scenes from 
Scripture ; and, for aught I know, the lady of Pow- 
nall or Bernard may have sat beside this fireplace, 
and told her children the story of each blue tile. 
A bar in modern style, well replenished with decan- 
ters, bottles, cigar-boxes, and network bags of lem- 
ons, and provided with a beer-pump and a soda- 
fount, extends along one side of the room. At my 
entrance, an elderly person was smacking his lips, 
with a zest which satisfied me that the cellars of 
the Province House still hold good liquor, though 
doubtless of other vintages than were quaffed by the 
old governors. After sipping a glass of port sanga- 
ree, prepared by the skilful hands of Mr. Thomas 
Waite, I besought that worthy successor and rep- 



HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 85 

resentative of so many historic personages to con- 
duct me over their time-honored mansion. 

He readily complied ; but, to confess the truth, I 
was forced to draw strenuously upon my imagina- 
tion, in order to find aught that was interesting in 
a house which, without its historic associations, 
would have seemed merely such a tavern as is usu- 
ally favored by the custom of decent city boarders 
and old-fashioned country gentlemen. The cham- 
bers, which were probably spacious in former times, 
are now cut up by partitions, and subdivided into 
little nooks, each affording scanty room for the 
narrow bed and chair and dressing-table of a single 
lodger. The great staircase, however, may be 
termed, without much hyperbole, a feature of 
grandeur and magnificence. It winds through the 
midst of the house by flights of broad steps, each 
flight terminating in a square landing-place, whence 
the ascent is continued towards the cupola. A 
carved balustrade, freshly painted in the lower 
stories, but growing dingier as we ascend, borders 
the staircase with its quaintly twisted and inter- 
twined pillars, from top to bottom. Up these 
stairs the military boots, or perchance the gouty 
shoes, of many a governor have trodden, as the 
wearers mounted to the cupola, which afforded 
them so wide a view over their metropolis and the 
surrounding country. The cupola is an octagon, 
with several windows, and a door opening upon the 
roof. From this station, as I pleased myself with 
imagining, Gage may have beheld his disastrous 



86 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

victory on Bunker Hill (unless one of the tri- 
mountains intervened), and. Howe have marked 
the approaches of Washington's besieging army ; 
although the buildings, since erected in the vicinity, 
have shut out almost every object, save the steeple 
of the Old South, which seems almost within arm's 
length. Descending from the cupola, I paused in 
the garret to observe the ponderous white-oak 
framework, so much more massive than the frames 
of modern houses, and thereby resembling an an- 
tique skeleton. The brick walls, the materials of 
which were imported from Holland, and the tim- 
bers of the mansion, are still as sound as ever ; but 
the floors and other interior parts being greatly de- 
cayed, it is contemplated to gut the whole, and 
build a new house within the ancient frame and 
brick-work. Among other inconveniences of the 
present edifice, mine host mentioned that any jar or 
motion was apt to shake down the dust of ages out 
of the ceiling of one chamber upon the floor of that 
beneath it. 

We stepped forth from the great front window 
into the balcony, where, in old times, it was doubt- 
less the custom of the king's representative to show 
himself to a loyal populace, requiting their huzzas 
and tossed-up hats with stately bendings of his dig- 
nified person. In those days, the front of the Prov- 
ince House looked upon the street ; and the whole 
site now occupied by the brick range of stores, as 
well as the present court-yard, was laid out in 
grass-plats, overshadowed by trees and bordered by 



HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 87 

a wrought-iron fence. Now, the old aristocratic 
edifice hides its time-worn visage behind an upstart 
modern building; at one of the back windows I 
observed some pretty tailoresses, sewing, and chat- 
ting, and laughing, with now and then a careless 
glance towards the balcony. Descending thence, 
we again entered the bar-room, where the elderly 
gentleman above mentioned, the smack of whose 
lips had spoken so favorably for Mr. Waiters good 
liquor, was still lounging in his chair. He seemed 
to be, if not a lodger, at least a familiar visitor of 
the house, who might be supposed to have his reg- 
ular score at the bar, his summer seat at the open 
window, and his prescriptive corner at the winter's 
fireside. Being of a sociable aspect, I ventured to 
address him with a remark, calculated to draw 
forth his historical reminiscences, if any such were 
in his mind ; and it gratified me to discover, that, 
between memory and tradition, the old gentleman 
was really possessed of some very pleasant gossip 
about the Province House. The portion of his 
talk which chiefly interested me was the outline of 
the following legend. He professed to have re- 
ceived it at one or two removes from an eye-wit- 
ness ; but this derivation, together with the lapse 
of time, must have afforded opportunities for many 
variations of the narrative ; so that, despairing of 
literal and absolute truth, I have not scrupled to 
make such further changes as seemed conducive to 
the reader's profit and delight. 



88 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

At one of the entertainments given at the Prov- 
ince House, during the latter part of the siege of 
Boston, there passed a scene which has never yet 
been satisfactorily explained. The officers of the 
British army, and the loyal gentry of the province, 
most of whom were collected within the beleaguered 
town, had been invited to a masked ball ; for it was 
the policy of Sir William Howe to hide the distress 
and danger of the period, and the desperate as- 
pect of the siege, under an ostentation of festivity. 
The spectacle of this evening, if the oldest mem- 
bers of the provincial court circle might be believed, 
was the most gay and gorgeous affair that had oc- 
curred in the annals of the government. The brill- 
iantly lighted apartments were thronged with fig- 
ures that seemed to have stepped from the dark 
canvas of historic portraits, or to have flitted forth 
from the magic pages of romance, or at least to 
have flown hither from one of the London theatres, 
without a change of garments. Steeled knights of 
the Conquest, bearded statesmen of Queen Eliza- 
beth, and high-ruffled ladies of her court, were min- 
gled with characters of comedy, such as a party- 
colored Merry. Andrew, jingling his cap and bells ; 
a Falstaff, almost as provocative of laughter as his 
prototype ; and a Don Quixote, with a bean-pole 
for a lance and a potlid for a shield. 

But the broadest merriment was excited by a 
group of figures ridiculously dressed in old regi- 
mentals, which seemed to have been purchased at 
a military rag-fair, or pilfered from some recepta- 



HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 89 

cle of the cast-off clothes of both the French and 
British armies. Portions of their attire had prob- 
ably been worn at the siege of Louisburg, and the 
coats of most recent cut might have been rent and 
tattered by sword, ball, or bayonet, as long ago as 
Wolfe's victory. One of these worthies — a tall, 
lank figure, brandishing a rusty sword of immense 
longitude — purported to be no less a personage 
than General George Washington ; and the other 
principal officers of the American army, such as 
Gates, Lee, Putnam, Schuyler, Ward, and Heath, 
were represented by similar scarecrows. An inter- 
view in the mock-heroic style, between the rebel 
warriors and the British commander-in-chief, was 
received with immense applause, which came loud- 
est of all from the loyalists of the colony. There 
was one of the guests, however, who stood apart, 
eying these antics sternly and scornfully, at once 
with a frown and a bitter smile. 

It was an old man, formerly of high station and 
great repute in the province, and who had been a 
very famous soldier in his day. Some surprise had 
been expressed, that a person of Colonel Joliffe's 
known whig principles, though now too old to take 
an active part in the contest, should have remained 
in Boston during the siege, and especially that he 
should consent to show himself in the mansion of 
Sir William Howe. But thither he had come, with 
a fair granddaughter under his arm ; and there, 
amid all the mirth and buffoonery, stood this stern 
old figure, the best sustained character in the mas- 



90 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

querade, because so well representing the antique 
spirit of his native land. The other guests affirmed 
that Colonel Joliffe's black puritanical scowl threw 
a shadow round about him ; although in spite of his 
sombre influence, their gayety continued to blaze 
higher, like (an ominous comparison) the flickering 
brillancy of a lamp which has but a little while to 
burn. Eleven strokes, full half an hour ago, had 
pealed from the clock of the Old South, when 
a rumor was circulated among the' company that 
some new spectacle or pageant was about to be ex- 
hibited, which should put a fitting close to the 
splendid festivities of the night. 

" What new jest has your Excellency in hand ? " 
asked the Rev. Mather Byles, whose Presbyterian 
scruples had not kept him from the entertainment. 
" Trust me, sir, I have already laughed more than 
beseems my cloth, at your Homeric confabulation 
with yonder ragamuffin general of the rebels. One 
other such fit of merriment, and I must throw off 
my clerical wig and band." 

" Not so, good Dr. Byles," answered Sir William 
Howe ; " if mirth were a crime, you had never 
gained your doctorate in divinity. As to this new 
foolery, I know no more about it than yourself ; 
perhaps not so much. Honestly now, Doctor, have 
you not stirred up the sober brains of some of your 
countrymen to enact a scene in our masquerade ? " 

" Perhaps," slyly remarked the granddaughter 
of Colonel Joliffe, whose high spirit had been stung 
by many taunts against New England, — " perhaps 



HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 91 

we are to have a mask of allegorical figures. Vic- 
tory, with trophies from Lexington and Bunker 
Hill, — Plenty, with her overflowing horn, to typ- 
ify the present abundance in this good town, — 
and Glory, with a wreath for his Excellency's 
brow." 

Sir William Howe smiled at words which he 
would have answered with one of his darkest 
frowns, had they been uttered by lips that wore a 
beard. He was spared the necessity of a retort, 
by a singular interruption. A sound of music was 
heard without the house, as if proceeding from a 
full band of military instruments stationed in the 
street, playing, not such a festal strain as was suited 
to the occasion, but a slow funeral march. The 
drums appeared to be muffled, and the trumpets 
poured forth a wailing breath, which at once hushed 
the merriment of the auditors, filling all with won- 
der and some with apprehension. The idea oc- 
curred to many, that either the funeral procession of 
some great personage had halted in front of the 
Province House, or that a corpse,. in a velvet-cov- 
ered and gorgeously decorated coffin, was about to 
be borne from the portal. After listening a mo- 
ment, Sir William Howe called, in a stern voice, 
to the leader of the musicians, who had hitherto 
enlivened the entertainment with gay and light- 
some melodies. The man was drum-major to one 
of the British regiments. 

" Dighton," demanded the general, " what means 
this foolery? Bid your band silence that dead 



92 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

march ; or, by my word, they shall have sufficient 
cause for their lugubrious strains ! Silence it, sir- 
rah!" 

" Please your Honor," answered the drum-major, 
whose rubicund visage had lost all its color, " the 
fault is none of mine. I and my band are all here 
together ; and I question whether there be a man 
of us that could play that march without book. I 
never heard it but once before, and that was at the 
funeral of his late Majesty, King George the Sec- 
ond." 

" Well, well ! " said Sir William Howe, recover- 
ing his composure ; " it is the prelude to some mas- 
querading antic. Let it pass." 

A figure now presented itself, but, among the 
many fantastic masks that were dispersed through 
the apartments, none could tell precisely from 
whence it came. It was a man in an old-fashioned 
dress of black serge, and having the aspect of a 
steward, or principal domestic in the household of 
a nobleman, or great English landholder. This 
figure advanced to the outer door of the mansion, 
and throwing both its leaves wide open, withdrew 
a little to one side and looked back towards the 
grand staircase, as if expecting some person to de- 
scend. At the same time, the music in the street 
sounded a loud and doleful summons. The eyes of 
Sir William Howe and his guests being directed to 
the staircase, there appeared, on the uppermost 
landing-place that was discernible from the bottom, 
several personages descending towards the door. 



HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 93 

The foremost was a man of stern visage, wearing a 
steeple-crowned hat and a skullcap beneath it ; a 
dark cloak, and huge wrinkled boots that came half- 
way up his legs. Under his arm was a rolled up 
banner, which seemed to be the banner of England, 
but strangely rent and torn ; he had a sword in his 
right hand, and grasped a Bible in his left. The 
next figure was of milder aspect, yet full of dig- 
nity, wearing a broad ruff, over which descended 
a beard, a gown of wrought velvet, and a doublet 
and hose of black satin. He carried a roll of man- 
uscript in his hand. Close behind these two came 
a young man of very striking countenance and de- 
meanor, with deep thought and contemplation on 
his brow, and perhaps a flash of enthusiasm in his 
eye. His garb, like that of his predecessors, was 
of an antique fashion, and there was a stain of 
blood upon his ruff. In the same group with these 
were three or four others, all men of dignity and 
evident command, and bearing themselves like per- 
sonages who were accustomed to the gaze of the 
multitude. It was the idea of the beholders, that 
these figures went to join the mysterious funeral 
that had halted in front of the Province House ; 
yet that supposition seemed to be contradicted by 
the air of triumph with which they waved their 
hands, as they crossed the threshold and vanished 
through the portal. 

" In the Devil's name, what is this ? " muttered 
Sir William Howe to a gentleman beside him ; " a 
procession of the regicide judges of King Charles 
the martyr ? " 



94 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

" These," said Colonel Joliffe, breaking silence 
almost for the first time that evening, — " these, if 
I interpret them aright, are the Puritan governors, 
— the rulers of the old, original democracy of Mas- 
sachusetts. Endicott, with the banner from which 
he had torn the symbol of subjection, 1 and Win- 
throp, and Sir Henry Yane, and Dudley, Haynes, 
Bellingham, and Leverett." 

" Why had that young man a stain of blood upon 
his ruff ? " asked Miss Joliffe. 

" Because, in after years," answered her grand- 
father, " he laid down the wisest head in England 
upon the block, for the principles of liberty." 

"Will not your Excellency order out the 
guard ? " whispered Lord Percy, who, with other 
British officers, had now assembled round the gen- 
eral. " There may be a plot under this mum- 
mery." 

" Tush ! we have nothing to fear," carelessly re- 
plied Sir William Howe. " There can be no worse 
treason in the matter than a jest, and that some- 
what of the dullest. Even were it a sharp and 
bitter one, our best policy would be to laugh it off. 
See, here come more of these gentry." 

Another group of characters had now partly de- 
scended the staircase. The first was a venerable and 
white-bearded patriarch, who cautiously felt his way 
downward with a staff. Treading hastily behind 
him, and stretching forth his gauntleted hand as if 

1 See Hawthorne's own story of The Red Cross in Grand- 
father's Chair. 



HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 95 

to grasp the old man's shoulder, came a tall, soldier- 
like figure, equipped with a plumed cap of steel, a 
bright breastplate, and a long sword, which rattled 
against the stairs. Next was seen a stout man, 
dressed in rich and courtly attire, but not of courtly 
demeanor ; his gait had the swinging motion of a 
seaman's walk ; and chancing to stumble on the 
staircase, he suddenly grew wrathful, and was 
heard to mutter an oath. He was followed by a 
noble-looking personage in a curled wig, such as 
are represented in the portraits of Queen Anne's 
time and earlier ; and the breast of his coat was dec- 
orated with an embroidered star. While advancing 
to the door, he bowed to the right hand and to the 
left, in a very gracious and insinuating style ; but 
as he crossed the threshold, unlike the early Puri- 
tan governors, he seemed to wring his hands with 
sorrow. 

" Prithee, play the part of a chorus, good Dr. 
Byles," said Sir William Howe. " What worthies 
are these ? " 

" If it please your Excellency, they lived some- 
what before my day," answered the Doctor ; " but 
doubtless our friend, the Colonel, has been hand in 
glove with them." 

"Their living faces I never looked upon," said 
Colonel Joliffe, gravely ; " although I have spoken 
face to face with many rulers of this land, and 
shall greet yet another with an old man's blessing, 
ere I die. But we talk of these figures. I take 
the venerable patriarch to be Bradstreet, the last 



96 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

of the Puritans, who was governor at ninety, or 
thereabouts. The next is Sir Edmund Andros, a 
tyrant, as any New England school-boy will tell 
you ; and therefore the people cast him down from 
his high seat into a dungeon. Then comes Sir 
William Phipps, shepherd, cooper, sea-captain, and 
governor : may many of his countrymen rise as 
high, from as low an origin ! Lastly, you saw the 
gracious Earl of Bellamont, who ruled us under 
King William." 

" But what is the meaning of it all ? " asked 
Lord Percy. 

" Now, were I a rebel," said Miss Joliffe, half 
aloud, " I might fancy that the ghosts of these an- 
cient governors had been summoned to form the 
funeral procession of royal authority in New Eng- 
land." 

Several other figures were now seen at the turn 
of the staircase. The one in advance had a 
thoughtful, anxious, and somewhat crafty expres- 
sion of face ; and in spite of his loftiness of man- 
ner, which was evidently the result both of an 
ambitious spirit and of long continuance in high 
stations, he seemed not incapable of cringing to a 
greater than himself. A few steps behind came an 
officer in a scarlet and embroidered uniform, cut in 
a fashion old enough to have been worn by the 
Duke of Marlborough. His nose had a rubicund 
tinge, which, together with the twinkle of his eye, 
might have marked him as a lover of the wine-cup 
and good-fellowship ; notwithstanding which tokens, 



HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 97 

he appeared ill at ease, and often glanced around 
him, as if apprehensive of some secret mischief. 
Next came a portly gentleman, wearing a coat of 
shaggy cloth, lined with silken velvet ; he had 
sense, shrewdness, and humor in his face, and a folio 
volume under his arm ; but his aspect was that of 
a man vexed and tormented beyond all patience and 
harassed almost to death. He went hastily down, 
and was followed by a dignified person, dressed in 
a purple velvet suit, with very rich embroidery ; 
his demeanor would have possessed much stateli- 
ness, only that a grievous fit of the gout compelled 
him to hobble from stair to stair, with contortions 
of face and body. When Dr. Byles beheld this 
figure on the staircase, he shivered as with an 
ague, but continued to watch him steadfastly, until 
the gouty gentleman had reached the threshold, 
made a gesture of anguish and despair, and van- 
ished into the outer gloom, whither the funeral 
music summoned him. 

" Governor Belcher ! — my old patron ! — in his 
very shape and dress ! " gasped Dr. Byles. " This 
is an awful mockery ! " 

" A tedious foolery, rather," said Sir William 
Howe, with an air of indifference. "But who 
were the three that preceded him ? " 

" Governor Dudley, a cunning politician, — yet 
his craft once brought him to a prison," replied 
Colonel JolifEe ; " Governor Shute, formerly a col- 
onel under Marlborough, and whom the people 
frightened out of the province ; and learned Gov- 
7 



98 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

ernor Burnet, whom the Legislature tormented into 
a mortal fever." 

" Methinks they were miserable men, these 
royal governors of Massachusetts," observed Miss 
Joliffe. " Heavens, how dim the light grows ! " 

It was certainly a fact that the large lamp which 
illuminated the staircase now burned dim and dusk- 
ily : so that several figures, which passed hastily 
down the stairs and went forth from the porch, ap- 
peared rather like shadows than persons of fleshly 
substance. Sir William Howe and his guests stood 
at the doors of the contiguous apartments, watch- 
ing the progress of this singular pageant, with va- 
rious emotions of anger, contempt, or half-acknowl- 
edged fear, but still with an anxious curiosity. The 
shapes, which now seemed hastening to join the 
mysterious procession, were recognized rather by 
striking peculiarities of dress, or broad character- 
istics of manner, than by any perceptible resem- 
blance of features to their prototypes. Their faces, 
indeed, were invariably kept in deep shadow. But 
Dr. Byles, and other gentlemen who had long been 
familiar with the successive rulers of the province, 
were heard to whisper the name of Shirley, of 
Pownall, of Sir Francis Bernard, and of the well- 
remembered Hutchinson ; thereby confessing that 
the actors, whoever they might be, in this spectral 
march of governors, had succeeded in putting on 
some distant portraiture of the real personages. 
As they vanished from the door, still did these 
shadows toss their arms into the gloom of night, 



HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 99 

with a dread expression of woe. Following the 
mimic representative of Hutchinson came a mili- 
tary figure, holding before his face the cocked hat 
which he had taken from his powdered head ; but 
his epaulets and other insignia of rank were those 
of a general officer ; and something in his mien re- 
minded the beholder of one who had recently been 
master of the Province House, and chief of all the 
land. 

" The shape of Gage, as true as in a looking- 
glass ! " exclaimed Lord Percy, turning pale. 

" No, surely," cried Miss Joliffe, laughing hys- 
terically ; " it could not be Gage, or Sir William 
would have greeted his old comrade in arms ! 
Perhaps he will not suffer the next to pass un- 
challenged." 

" Of that be assured, young lady," answered Sir 
William Howe, fixing his eyes, with a very marked 
expression, upon the immovable visage of her grand- 
father. " I have long enough delayed to pay the 
ceremonies of a host to these departing guests. The 
next that takes his leave shall receive due cour- 
tesy." 

A wild and dreary burst of music came through 
the open door. It seemed as if the procession, 
which had been gradually filling up its ranks, were 
now about to move, and this loud peal of the 
wailing trumpets, and roll of the muffled drums, 
were a call to some loiterer to make haste. Many 
eyes, by an irresistible impulse, were turned upon 
Sir William Howe, as if it were he whom the 



100 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

dreary music summoned to the funeral of departed 
power. 

" See ! — here comes the last ! " whispered Miss 
Joliffe, pointing her tremulous finger to the stair- 
case. 

A figure had come into view as if descending the 
stairs ; although so dusky was the region whence 
it emerged, some of the spectators fancied that they 
had seen this human shape suddenly moulding it- 
self amid the gloom. Downward the figure came, 
with a stately and martial tread, and reaching the 
lowest stair was observed to be a tall man, booted 
and wrapped in a military cloak, which was drawn 
up around the face so as to meet the flapped brim 
of a laced hat. The features, therefore, were com- 
pletely hidden. But the British officers deemed 
that they had seen that military cloak before, and 
even recognized the frayed embroidery on the col- 
lar, as well as the gilded scabbard of a sword 
which protruded from the folds of the cloak, and 
glittered in a vivid gleam of light. Apart from 
these trifling particulars, there were characteristics 
of gait and bearing which impelled the wondering 
guests to glance from the shrouded figure to Sir 
William Howe, as if to satisfy themselves that their 
host had not suddenly vanished from the midst of 
them. 

With a dark flush of wrath upon his brow, they 
saw the general draw his sword and advance to 
meet the figure in the cloak before the latter had 
stepped one pace upon the floor. 



HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 101 

" Villain, unmuffle yourself ! " cried he. " You 
pass no farther ! " 

The figure, without blenching a hair's-breadth 
from the sword which was pointed at his breast, 
made a solemn pause and lowered the cape of the 
cloak from about his face, yet not sufficiently for 
the spectators to catch a glimpse of it. But Sir 
William Howe had evidently seen enough. The 
sternness of his countenance gave place to a look of 
wild amazement, if nofe horror, while he recoiled 
several steps from the figure, and let fall his sword 
upon the floor. The martial shape again drew the 
cloak about his features and passed on ; but reach- 
ing the threshold, with his back towards the spec- 
tators, he was seen to stamp his foot and shake his 
clinched hands in the air. It was afterwards af- 
firmed that Sir William Howe had repeated that 
self-same gesture of rage and sorrow, when, for the 
last time, and as the last royal governor, he passed 
through the portal of the Province House. 

" Hark ! — the procession moves," said Miss Jo- 
liffe. 

The music was dying away along the street, and 
its dismal strains were mingled with the knell of 
midnight from the steeple of the Old South, and 
with the roar of artillery, which announced that the 
beleaguering army of Washington had intrenched 
itself upon a nearer height than before. As the 
deep boom of the cannon smote upon his ear, Colo- 
nel Joliffe raised himself to the full height of his 
aged form, and smiled sternly on the British gen- 
eral. 



102 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

" "Would your Excellency inquire further into 
the mystery of the pageant ? " said he. 

" Take care of your gray head ! " cried Sir Wil- 
liam Howe, fiercely, though with a quivering lip. 
" It has stood too long on a traitor's shoulders ! " 

"You must make haste to chop it off, then," 
calmly replied the Colonel ; " for a few hours 
longer, and not all the power of Sir William Howe, 
nor of his master, shall cause one of these gray 
hairs to fall. The empire of Britain, in this an- 
cient province, is at its last gasp to-night ; almost 
while I speak it is a dead corpse ; and methinks 
the shadows of the old governors are fit mourners 
as its funeral ! " 

With these words Colonel Joliffe threw on his 
cloak, and drawing his granddaughter's arm within 
his own, retired from the last festival that a British 
ruler ever held in the old province of Massachusetts 
Bay. It was supposed that the Colonel and the 
young lady possessed some secret intelligence in 
regard to the mysterious pageant of that night. 
However this might be, such knowledge has never 
become general. The actors in the scene have van- 
ished into deeper obscurity than even that wild In- 
dian band who scattered the cargoes of the tea- 
ships on the waves, and gained a place in history, yet 
left no names. But superstition, among other leg- 
ends of this mansion, repeats the wondrous tale, that 
on the anniversary night of Britain's discomfiture, 
the ghosts of the ancient governors of Massachu- 
setts still glide through the portal of the Province 



HOWE'S MASQUERADE. 103 

House. And, last of all, comes a figure shrouded 
in a military cloak, tossing his clinched hands into 
the air, and stamping his iron-shod boots upon the 
broad freestone steps with a semblance of feverish 
despair, but without the sound of a foot-tramp. 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 



INTRODUCTION. 

IRVING may be named as the first author in the 
United States whose writings made a place for 
themselves in general literature. Franklin, in- 
deed, had preceded him with his autobiography, 
but Franklin belongs rather to the colonial period. 
It was under the influences of that, time that his 
mind and taste were formed, and there was a 
marked difference between the Boston and Phila- 
delphia of Franklin's youth and the New York of 
Irving's time. Politics, commerce, and the rise of 
industries were rapidly changing social relations 
and manners, while the country was still dependent 
on England for its higher literature. It had hardly 
begun to find materials for literature in its own past 
or in its aspects of nature, yet there was a very pos- 
itive element in life which resented foreign inter- 
ference. There were thus two currents crossing 
each other ; the common life which was narrowly 
American and the cultivated taste which was Eng- 
lish, or imitative of England. Irving's first ventures, 
in company with his brothers and Paulding, were 



INTRODUCTION. 105 

in the attempt to represent New York in literature 
upon the model of contemporary or recent presen- 
tations of London. " The town " in the minds of 
these young writers was that portion of New York 
society which might be construed into a miniature 
reflection of London wit and amusement. His asso- 
ciates never advanced beyond this stage, but with 
Washington Irving the sketches which he wrote 
under the signature of Jonathan Old Style and in the 
medley of Salmagundi were only the first experi- 
ments of a mind capable of larger things. After 
five or six years of trifling with his pen, he wrote 
and published, in 1809, A History of New York, by 
Diedrich Knickerbocker, which he began in company 
with his brother Peter as a mere jeu d 'esprit, but 
turned into a more determined work of humor, as 
the capabilities of the subject disclosed themselves. 
Grave historians had paid little attention to the 
record of New York under the Dutch ; Irving, who 
saw the humorous contrast between the traditional 
Dutch society of his day and the pushing new de- 
mocracy, seized upon the early history and made 
it the occasion for a good-natured burlesque. He 
shocked the old families about him, but he amused 
everybody else, and the book going to England, 
made his name at once known to those who had 
the making there of literary reputations. 

Irving himself was born of a Scottish father and 
English mother, who had come to this country only 
twenty years before. He was but little removed, 
therefore, from the traditions of Great Britain, and 



106 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

his brothers and he carried on a trading business 
with the old country. His own tastes were not 
mercantile, and he was only silent partner in the 
house ; he wrote occasionally and was for a time 
the editor of a magazine, but his pleasure was 
chiefly in travel, good literature, and good society. 
It was while he was in England, in 1818, that the 
house in which he was a partner failed, and he was 
thrown on his own resources. Necessity gave the 
slight spur which was wanting to his inclination, 
and he be^an with deliberation the career of an 
author. He had found himself at home in Eng- 
land. His family origin and his taste for the best 
literature had made him English in his sympathies 
and tastes, and his residence and travels there, the 
society which he entered and the friends he made, 
confirmed him in English habits. Nevertheless he 
was sturdily American in his principles, he was 
strongly attached to New York and his American 
friends, and was always a looker-on in England. 
His foreign birth and education gave him signifi- 
cant advantages as an observer of English life, and 
he at once began the writing of those papers, sto- 
ries, and sketches which appeared in the separate 
numbers of Tlie Sketch Book, in Bracebridge Hall, 
and in Tales of a Tiweller. They were chiefly 
drawn from material accumulated abroad, but an 
occasional American subject was taken. Irving in- 
stinctively felt that by the circumstances of the 
time and the bent of his genius he could pursue his 
calling more safely abroad than at home. He re- 



INTRODUCTION. 107 

mained in Europe seventeen years, sending home 
his books for publication, and securing also the 
profitable results of publication in London. Dur- 
ing that time, besides the books above named, he 
wrote the History of the Life and Voyages of Chris- 
topher Columbus, the Voyages and Discoveries of the 
Companions of Columbus, A Chronicle of the Con- 
quest of Granada, and The Alhambra. The Span- 
ish material was obtained while residing in Spain, 
whither he went at the suggestion of the American 
minister to make translations of documents relating 
to the voyages of Columbus which had recently 
been collected. Irving's training and tastes led 
him rather into the construction of popular narra- 
tive than into the work of a scientific historian, and, 
with his strong American affections, he was quick 
to see the interest and value which lay in the his- 
tory of Spain as connected with America. He was 
eminently a raconteur, very skilful and graceful in 
the shaping of old material; his humor played 
freely over the surface of his writing, and, with lit- 
tle power to create characters or plots, he had an 
unfailing perception of the literary capabilities of 
scenes and persons which came under his observa- 
tion. 

He came back to America in 1832 with an es- 
tablished reputation, and was welcomed enthusias- 
tically by his friends and countrymen. He trav- 
elled into the new parts of America, and spent ten 
years at home, industriously working at the mate- 
rial which had accumulated in his hands when 



108 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

abroad, and been increased during his travels in 
the West. In this period he published Legends of 
the Conquest of Spain ; The Crayon Miscellany, in- 
cluding his Tour on the Prairies, Abbotsford and 
Newstead Abbey ; Astoria ; a number of papers in 
the Knickerbocker Magazine, afterwards published 
under the title of Wolf erf s Roost ; and edited the 
Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., in the 
Rocky Mountains and the Far West. 

In 1842 he went back to Spain as American 
minister, holding the office for four years, when he 
returned to America, established himself at his 
home, Sunnyside on the banks of the Hudson, and 
remained there until his death in 1859. The fruits 
of this fiual period were Mahomet and his Success- 
ors, which, with a volume of posthumous publication, 
Spanish Papers and other Miscellanies, completed 
the series of Spanish and Moorish subjects which 
form a distinct part of his writings; Oliver Gold- 
smith, a Biography ; and finally a Life of Washing- 
ton, which occupied the closing years of his life, — 
years which were not free from physical suffering. 
In this book Irving embodied his strong admiration 
for the subject, whose name he bore and whose 
blessing he had received as a child ; he employed, 
too, a pen which had been trained by its labors on 
the Spanish material, and, like that series, the work 
is marked by good taste, artistic sense of proportion, 
faithfulness, and candor rather than by the severer 
work of the historian. It is a popular and fair life 
of Washington, and account of the war for inde- 
pendence. 



INTRODUCTION. 109 

Irving's personal and literary history is recorded 
in The Life and Letters of Washington Irving by 
his nephew, Pierre M. Irving. His death was the 
occasion of many affectionate and graceful eulogies 
and addresses, a number of which were gathered 
into Irvingiana : a Memorial of Washington Irving. 

Rip Van Winkle and Little Britain are both from 
The Sketch Book. 



I. 

RIP VAN WINKLE. 

A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKER- 
BOCKER. 

[Diedrich Knickerbocker was a humorous 
invention of Irving' s, and his name was familiar to 
the public as the author of A History of New York. 
The History was published in 1809, but it was ten 
years more before the first number of The Sketch 
Booh of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., was published. 
This number, which contained Rip Van Winkle, 
was, like succeeding numbers, written by Irving in 
England and sent home to America for publication. 
He laid the scene of the story in the Kaatskills, 
but he drew upon his imagination and the reports 
of others for the scenery, not visiting the spot until 
1833. The story is not absolutely new; the fairy 
tale of The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood has the 
same theme; so has the story of Epimenides of 
Crete, who lived in the sixth or seventh century 
before Christ. He was said to have fallen asleep 
in a cave when a boy, and to have awaked at the 
end of fifty-seven years, his soul, meanwhile, having 
been growing in stature. There is the legend also 
of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, Christian mar- 



RIP VAN WINKLE. Ill 

tyrs who were walled into a cave to which they had 
fled for refuge, and there were miraculously pre- 
served for two centuries. Among the stories in 
which the Harz Mountains of Germany are so pro- 
lific is one of Peter Klaus, a goatherd who was 
accosted one day by a young man who silently 
beckoned him to follow, and led him to a secluded 
spot, where he found twelve knights playing, voice- 
less, at skittles. He saw a can of wine which 
was very fragrant, and, drinking of it, was thrown 
into a deep sleep, from which he did not wake for 
twenty years. The story gives incidents of his 
awaking and of the changes which he found in the 
village to which he returned. This story, which 
was published with others in 1800, may very likely 
have been the immediate suggestion to Irving, 
who has taken nearly the same framework. The 
humorous additions which he has made, and the 
grace with which he has invested the tale, have 
caused his story to supplant earlier ones in the pop- 
ular mind, so that Rip Yan Winkle has passed into 
familiar speech, and allusions to him are clearly 
understood by thousands who have never read Irv- 
ing's story. The recent dramatizing of the story, 
though following the outline only, has done much 
to fix the conception of the character. The story 
appeals very directly to a common sentiment of 
curiosity as to the future, which is not far removed 
from what some have regarded as an instinct of 
the human mind pointing to personal immortality. 
The name Van "Winkle was happily chosen by Irv- 



1 1 2 WASHINGTON IR VING. 

ing, but not invented by him. The printer of the 
Sketch Booh, for one, bore the name. The name of 
Knickerbocker, also, is among Dutch names, but 
Irving's use of it has made it representative. In 
The Author's Apology, which he prefixed to a new 
edition of the History of New York, he says : " I 
find its very name become a ' household word,' 
and used to give the home stamp to everything rec- 
ommended for popular acceptation, such as Knick- 
erbocker societies ; Knickerbocker insurance com- 
panies ; Knickerbocker steamboats ; Knickerbocker 
omnibuses ; Knickerbocker bread and Knicker- 
bocker ice; and .... New Yorkers of Dutch 
descent priding themselves upon being ' genuine 
Knickerbockers.' "J 



By Woden, God of Saxons, 

From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday. 

Truth is a thing that ever I will keep 

Unto thylke day in which I creep into 

My sepulchre. CARTWRIGHT. 1 

The following Tale was found among the papers of the late 
Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who 
was very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the 
manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His his- 
torical researches, however, did not lie so much among books 
as among men ; for the former are lamentably scanty on his 
favorite topics ; whereas he found the old burghers, and still 
more their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invaluable to 
true history. "Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a gen- 
uine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse, 
under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped 

1 William Cartwright, 1611-1643, was a friend and disciple of 
Ben Jonson. 



RIP VAN WINKLE, 113 

volume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a book- 
worm. 

The result of all these researches was a history of the province 
during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published 
some years since. There have been various opinions as to the 
literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a 
whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous 
accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first ap- 
pearance, but has since been completely established; and it is 
now admitted into all historical' collections, as a book of unques- 
tionable authority. 

The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his 
work, and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm 
to his memory 1 to say that his time might have been much bet- 
ter employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt to ride 
his hobby his own way ; and though it did now and then kick up 
the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the spirit 
of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affec- 
tion ; yet his errors and follies are remembered " more in sorrow 
than in anger," and it begins to be suspected that he never in- 
tended to injure or offend. But however his memory may be 
appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folk, whose 
good opinion is worth having ; particularly by certain biscuit- 
bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their 
new-year cakes ; 2 and have thus given him a chance for immor- 

1 The History of Neio Yorh had given offence to many old 
New Yorkers because of its saucy treatment of names which were 
held in veneration as those of founders of families, and its gen- 
eral burlesque of Dutch character. Among the critics was a 
warm friend of Irving, Gulian C. Verplanck, who in a dis- 
course before the New York Historical Society plainly said: "It 
is painful to see a mind as admirable for its exquisite perception 
of the beautiful, as it is for its quick sense of the ridiculous, 
wasting the richness of its fancy on an ungrateful theme, and its 
exuberant humor in a coarse caricature." Irving took the cen- 
sure good-naturedly, and as he read Verplanck' s words just as 
he was finishing the story of Rip Van Winkle he gave them 
this playful notice in the introduction. 

2 An oblong seed-cake, still made in New York at New Year's 
time, and of Dutch origin. 

8 



114 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

tality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, 
or a Queen Anne's Farthing. 1 

Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson 
must remember the Kaatskill Mountains. They 
are a dismembered branch of the great Appalach- 
ian family, and are seen away to the west of the 
river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it 
over the surrounding country. Every change of 
season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour 
of the day, produces some change in the magical 
hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are 
regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as 
perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and 
settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and 
print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky ; 
but, sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is 
cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors 
about their summits, which, in the last rays of the 
setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of 
glory. 

At the foot of these fairy 2 mountains, the voy- 
ager may have descried the light smoke curling up 
from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among 

1 There was a popular story that only three farthings were 
struck in Queen Anne's reign ; that two were in public keeping, 
and that the third was no one knew where, but that its lucky 
finder would be able to hold it at an enormous price. As a mat- 
ter of fact there were eight coinings of farthings in the reign of 
Queen Anne, and numismatists do not set a high value on the 
piece. 

2 A light touch to help the reader into a proper spirit for re- 
ceiving the tale. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 115 

the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland 
melt away into the fresh green of the nearer land- 
scape. It is a little village of great antiquity, hav- 
ing been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in 
the early time of the province, just about the be- 
ginning of the government of the good Peter Stuy- 
vesant, 1 (may he rest in peace !) and there were 
some of the houses of the original settlers standing 
within a few years, built of small yellow bricks 
brought from Holland, having latticed windows and 
gable fronts, surmounted with weather-cocks. 

In that same village, and in one of these very 
houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly 
time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many 
years since, while the country was yet a province 
of Great Britain, a simple, good-natured fellow, of 
the name of Rip Van Winkle, He was a descend- 
ant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly 
in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and 
accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. 2 
He inherited, however, but little of the martial 
character of his ancestors. I have observed that 
he was a simple, good-natured man ; he was, more- 

1 Stuyvesant was governor of New Netherlands from 1647 to 
1664. He plays an important part in Knickerbocker's History 
of New York, as he did in actual life. Until quite recently a 
pear tree was shown on the Bowery, said to have been planted 
by him. 

2 - The Van Winkles appear in the illustrious catalogue of he- 
roes who accompanied Stuyvesant to Fort Christina, and were 

" Brimful of wrath and cabbage." 
See History of' New York, book VI. chap. viii. 



116 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

over, a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen-pecked 
husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might 
be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him 
such universal popularity ; for those men are most 
apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who 
are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their 
tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malle- 
able in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation ; 
and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in 
the world for teaching the virtues of patience and 
long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, 
in some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing ; 
and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed. 

Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among 
all the good wives of the village, who, as usual, 
with the amiable sex, took his part in all family 
squabbles ; and never failed, whenever they talked 
those matters over in their evening gossipings, to 
lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The 
children of the village, too, would shout with joy 
whenever he approached. He assisted at their, 
sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly 
kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories 
of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he 
went dodging about the village, he was surrounded 
by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clamber- 
ing on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on 
him with impunity ; and not a dog would bark at 
him throughout the neighborhood. 

The great error in Rip's composition was an in- 
superable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 117 

It could not be from the want of assiduity or per- 
severance ; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a 
rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish 
all day without a murmur, even though he should 
not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would 
carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours to- 
gether, trudging through woods and swamps, and 
up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or 
wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a 
neighbor, even in the roughest toil, and was a fore- 
most man at all country frolics for husking Indian 
corn, or building stone-fences ; the women of the 
village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, 
and to do such little odd iobs as their less oblidno- 
husbands would not do for them. In a word, Rip 
was ready to attend to anybody's business but his 
own ; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his 
farm in order, he found it impossible. 

In fact, he declared -it was of no use to work on 
his farm ; it was the most pestilent little piece of 
ground in the whole country ; everything about it 
went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. 
His fences were continually falling to pieces ; his 
cow would either go astray or get among the cab- 
bages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his 
fields than anywhere else ; the rain always made a 
point of setting in just as he, had some out-door 
work to do ; so that though his patrimonial estate 
had dwindled away under his management, acre by 
acre, until there was little more left than a mere 
patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the 
worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood. 



118 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if 
they belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin 
begotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit 
the habits, with the old clothes of his father. He 
was generally seen trooping like a colt at his 
mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's 
cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold 
up with one hand, as a fine lady does her train in 
bad weather. 

Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those 
happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, 
who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, 
whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, 
and would rather starve on a penny than work for 
a pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled 
life away in perfect contentment ; but his wife kept 
continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, 
his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on 
his family. Morning, noon, and night her tongue 
was incessantly going, and everything he said or 
did was sure to produce a torrent of household 
eloquence. Rip had but one way of replying to 
all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, 
had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoul- 
ders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said 
nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh 
volley from his wife ; so that he was fain to draw 
off his forces, and take to the outside of the house 
— the only side which, in truth, belongs to a hen- 
pecked husband. 

Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 119 

who was as much hen-pecked as his master ; for 
Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions 
in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an 
evil eye, as the cause of his master's going so often 
astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting 
an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal 
as ever scoured the woods — but what courage can 
withstand the ever-during and all-besetting terrors 
of a woman's tongue ? The moment Wolf entered 
the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the 
ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked 
about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong 
glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flour- 
ish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly to the door 
with yelping precipitation. 

Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van 
Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on ; a tart 
temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue 
is the only edged tool that grows keener with con- 
stant use. For a long while he used to console 
himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a 
kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, 
and other idle personages of the village ; which 
held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, 
designated by a rubicund portrait of His Majesty 
George the Third. Here they used to sit in the 
shade through a long lazy summer's day, talking 
listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless 
sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have 
been worth any statesman's money to have heard 
the profound discussions that sometimes took place, 



120 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

when by chance an old newspaper fell into their 
hands from some passing traveller. How solemnly 
they would listen to the contents, as drawled out 
by Derrick Yan Bunimel, the school-master, a dap- 
per learned little man, who was not to be daunted 
by the most gigantic word in the dictionary ; and 
how sagely they would deliberate upon public 
events some months after they had taken place. 

The opinions of this junto were completely con- 
trolled by Nicholas Yedder, a patriarch of the vil- 
lage, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which 
he took his seat from morning till night, just mov- 
ing sufficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the 
shade of a large tree ; so that the neighbors could 
tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by 
a sun-dial. It is true he was rarely heard to speak, 
but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherents, 
however (for every great man has his adherents), 
perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather 
his opinions. When anything that was read or re- 
lated displeased him, he was observed to smoke his 
pipe Vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent, 
and angry puffs ; but when pleased, he would in- 
hale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it 
in light and placid clouds ; and sometimes, taking 
the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant 
vapor cUrl about his nose, would gravely nod his 
head in token of perfect approbation. 

From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was 
at length routed by his termagant wife, who would 
suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of the as- 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 121 

semblage and call the members all to naught ; nor 
was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder him- 
self, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible 
virago, who charged him outright with encouraging 
her husband in habits of idleness. 

Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair ; 
and his only alternative, to escape from the labor 
of the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take gun 
in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he 
would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, 
and share the contents -of his wallet with Wolf, 
with whom he sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in 
persecution. " Poor Wolf," he would say, " thy 
mistress leads thee a clog's life of it ; but never 
mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a 
friend to stand by thee ! " Wolf would wag his 
tail, look wistfully in his master's face, and if dogs 
can feel pity I verily believe he reciprocated the 
sentiment with all his heart. 

In a Ions ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal 
day, Rip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the 
highest parts of the Kaatskill Mountains. . He was 
after his favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and the 
still solitudes had echoed and reechoed with the 
reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw 
himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, cov- 
ered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow 
of a precipice. From an opening between the trees 
he could overlook all the lower country for many a 
mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the 
lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its 



122 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a 
purple cloud, or the sail of a' lagging bark, here and 
there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing 
itself in the blue highlands. 

On the other side he looked down into a deep 
mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bot- 
tom filled with fragments from the impending cliffs, 
and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the 
setting sun. For some time Kip lay musing on this 
scene ; evening was gradually advancing ; the moun- 
tains began to throw their long blue shadows over 
the valleys ; he saw that it would be dark long be- 
fore he could reach the village, and he heaved a 
heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the 
terrors of Dame Van Winkle. 

As he was about to descend, he heard a voice 
from a distance, hallooing, " Rip Van Winkle ! Rip 
Van Winkle ! " He looked round, but could see 
nothing but a crow winging its solitary flight across 
the mountain. He thought his fancy must have 
deceived him, and turned again to descend, when 
he heard the same cry ring through the still even- 
ing air : " Rip Van Winkle ! Rip Van Winkle ! " — 
at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and 
giving a low growl, skulked to his master's side, 
looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip now felt 
a vague apprehension stealing over him ; he looked 
anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a 
strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks, and bend- 
ing under the weight of something he carried on his 
back. He was surprised to see any human being 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 123 

in this lonely and unfrequented place ; but suppos- 
ing it to be some one of the neighborhood in need 
of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it. 

On nearer approach he was still more surprised 
at the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He 
was a short, square-built old fellow, with thick bushy 
hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the 
antique Dutch fashion — a cloth jerkin strapped 
round the waist — several pan of breeches, the 
outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of 
buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees. 
He bore on his shoulder a stout keg, that seemed 
full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach 
and assist him with the load. Though rather shy 
and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip com- 
plied with his usual alacrity ; and mutually reliev- 
ing one another, they clambered up a narrow gully, 
apparently the dry bed of a mountain torrent. As 
they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long 
rolling peals like distant thunder, that seemed to 
issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, between 
lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path con- 
ducted. He paused for a moment, but supposing it 
to be the muttering of one of those transient thun- 
der-showers which often take place in mountain 
heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ra- 
vine, they came to a hollow, like a small amphi- 
theatre, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, 
over the brinks of which impending trees shot their 
branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the 
azure sky and the bright evening cloud. During 



124 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the whole time Rip and his companion had labored 
on in silence ; for though the former marvelled 
greatly what could be the object of carrying a 
keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was 
something strange and incomprehensible about the 
unknown, that inspired awe and checked famil- 
iarity. 

On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of 
wonder presented themselves. On a level spot in 
the centre was a company of odd-looking person- 
ages playing at nine-pins. They were dressed in a 
quaint outlandish fashion ; some wore short doub- 
lets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, 
and most of them had enormous breeches of similar 
style with that of the guide's. Their visages, too, 
were peculiar ; one had a large beard, broad face, 
and small piggish eyes ; the face of another seemed 
to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by 
a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cock's 
tail. They all had beards, of various shapes and 
colors. There was one who seemed to be the com- 
mander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a 
weather-beaten countenance ; he wore a laced doub- 
let, broad belt and hanger, high crowned hat and 
feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with 
roses in them. The whole group reminded Rip 
of the figures in an old Flemish painting in the 
parlor of Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, 
which had been brought over from Holland at the 
time of the settlement. 

What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 125 

though these folks were evidently amusing them- 
selves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the 
most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most 
melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. 
Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but 
the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were 
rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling 
peals of thunder. 

As Rip and his companion approached them, 
they suddenly desisted from their play, and stared 
at him "with such fixed, statue-like gaze, and such 
strange, uncouth, lack-lustre countenances, that his 
heart turned within him, and his knees smote to- 
gether. His companion now emptied the contents 
of the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him 
to wait upon the company. He obeyed with fear 
and trembling ; they quaffed the liquor in profound 
silence, and then returned to their game. 

By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. 
He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon 
him, to taste the beverage, which he found had 
much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was 
naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to 
repeat the draught. One taste provoked another ; 
and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often 
that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes 
swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and 
he fell into a deep sleep. 

On waking, he found himself on the green knoll 
whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. 
He rubbed his eyes — it was a bright, sunny morn- 



126 WASHINGTON IR VING. 

ing. The birds were hopping and twittering among 
the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and 
breasting the pure mountain breeze. " Surely," 
thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." 
He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. 
The strange man with a keg of liquor — the moun- 
tain ravine — the wild retreat among the rocks — 
the woe-begone party at nine-pins — the flagon — 
" Oh ! that flagon ! that wicked flagon ! " thought 
Rip — " what excuse shall I make, to Dame Van 
Winkle?" 

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the 
clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old fire- 
lock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, 
the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He 
now suspected that the grave roisters of the moun- 
tain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed 
him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, 
too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed 
away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled 
after him, and shouted his name, but all in vain ; 
the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no 
dog was to be seen. 

He determined to revisit the scene of the last 
evening's gambol, and if he met with any of the 
party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to 
walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and want- 
ing in his usual activity. " These mountain beds 
do not agree with me," thought Rip, " and if this 
frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheuma- 
tism, I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 127 

Winkle." With some difficulty he got down into 
the glen ; he found the gully up which he and his 
companion had ascended the preceding evening ; 
but to his astonishment a mountain stream was now 
foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and 
filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, how- 
ever, made shift to scramble up its sides, working 
his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, 
and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or en- 
tangled by the wild grapevines that twisted their 
coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind 
of network in his path. 

At length he reached to where the ravine had 
opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre ; but 
no traces of such opening remained. The rocks 
presented a high, impenetrable wall, over which the 
torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, 
and fell into a broad, deep basin, black from the 
shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then,* 
poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called 
and whistled after his dog ; he was only answered 
by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high 
in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny pre- 
cipice ; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed 
to look down and scoff at the poor man's perplex- 
ities. What was to be done ? the morning was 
passing away, and Rip felt famished for want of his 
breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun ; 
he dreaded to meet his wife ; .but it would not do to 
starve among the mountains. He shook his head, 
shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full 



128 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps home- 
ward. 

As he approached the village he met a number 
of people, but none whom he knew, which some- 
what surprised . him, for he had thought himself 
acquainted with every one in the country round. 
Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from 
that to which he was accustomed. They all stared 
at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever 
they cast their eyes upon him, invariably stroked 
their chins. The constant recurrence of this gest- 
ure induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, 
when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had 
grown a foot long ! 

He had now entered the skirts of the village. A 
troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting 
after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The 
dogs, too, not one of which he recognized for an old 
acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The 
very village was altered ; it was larger and more 
populous. There were rows of houses which he 
had never seen before, and those which had been 
his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange 
names were over the doors — strange faces at the 
windows — everything was strange. His mind now 
misgave him ; he began to doubt whether both he 
and the world around him were not bewitched. 
Surely this was his native village, which he had 
left but the day before. There stood the Kaatskill 
Mountains — there ran the silver Hudson at a dis- 
tance — there was every hill and dale precisely as 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 129 

it had always been — Rip was sorely perplexed — 
" That flagon last night," thought he, " has addled 
my poor head sadly ! " 

It was with some difficulty that he found the way 
to his own house, which he approached with silent 
awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill 
voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house 
gone to decay — the roof fallen in, the windows 
shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half- 
starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking 
about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur 
snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This 
was an unkind cut indeed — " My very dog," 
sighed poor Rip, " has forgotten me ! " 

He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, 
Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. 
It was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. 
This desolateness overcame all his connubial fears 
— he called loudly for his wife and children — the 
lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, 
and then again all was silence. 

He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old 
resort, the village inn — but it, too, was gone. A 
large, rickety wooden building stood in its place, 
with great gaping windows, some of them broken 
and mended with old hats and petticoats, and over 
the door was painted, il The Union Hotel, by Jona- 
than Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used 
to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there 
now was reared a tall naked pole, with something 
on the top that looked like a red night-cap, and 
9 



130 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singu- 
lar assemblage of stars and stripes — all this was 
strange and incomprehensible. He recognized on 
the sign, however, the ruby face of King. George, 
under which he had smoked so many a peaceful 
pipe ; but even this was singularly metamorphosed. 
The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, 
a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, 
the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and un- 
derneath was painted in large characters, General 
"Washington. 

There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the 
door, but none that Rip recollected. The very 
character of the people seemed changed. There 
was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, in- 
stead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tran- 
quillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nichu'aji 
Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair 
long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco-smoke instead 
of idle speeches ; or Van Bummel, the school-mas- 
ter, doling forth the contents of an ancient news- 
paper. In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking 
fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was ha- 
ranguing vehemently about rights of citizens — 
elections — members of congress — liberty — Bunk- 
er's Hill — heroes of seventy - six — and other 
words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to 
the bewildered Yan Winkle. 

The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled 
beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, 
and an army of women and children at his heels, 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 131 

soon attracted the attention of the tavern-politi- 
cians. They crowded round him, eying him from 
head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bus- 
tled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, in- 
quired " on which side he voted ? " Eip stared in 
vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little 
fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, 
inquired in his ear, " Whether he was Federal or 
Democrat ? " Rip was equally at a loss to com- 
prehend the question; when a knowing, self-im- 
portant old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made 
his way through the crowd, putting them to the 
right and left with his elbows as he passed, and 
planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm 
akimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes 
and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very 
soul, demanded in an austere tone, " what brought 
him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and 
a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed 
a riot in the village ? '"' — " Alas ! gentlemen," 
cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, "lama poor quiet 
man, a native of the place, and- a loyal subject of 
the king, God bless him ! " 

Here a general shout 'burst from the bystanders 
— " A tory ! a tory ! a spy ! a refugee ! hustle him ! 
away with him ! " It was with great difficulty that 
the self-important man in the cocked hat restored 
order ; and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of 
brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit, 
what he came there for, and whom he was seek- 
ing ? The poor man humbly assured him that he 



132 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

meant no harm, but merely came there in search of 
some of his neighbors, who used to keep about the 
tavern. 

" Well — who are they ? — name them." 

Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, 
" Where 's Nicholas Vedder ? " 

There was a silence for a little while, when an 
old man replied, in a thin, piping voice. " Nicholas 
Vedder ! why, he is dead and gone these eighteen 
years ! There was a wooden tombstone in the 
churchyard that used to tell all about him, but 
that 's rotten and gone too." 

" Where 's Brom Butcher ? " 

" Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning 
of the war ; some say he was killed at the storming 
of Stony Point J — others say he was drowned in a 
squall at the foot of Antony's Nose. 2 I don't know 
— he never came back a^ain." 

1 On the Hudson. The place is famous for the daring assault 
made by Mad Anthony "Wayne, July 15, 1779. 

2 A few miles above Stony Point is the promontory of An- 
tony's Nose. If we are to believe Diedrich Knickerbocker, it 
was named after Antony Van Corlear, Stuyvesant's trumpeter. 
"It must be known, then, that the nose of Antony the Trum- 
peter was of a very lusty size, strutting boldly from his counte- 
nance like a mountain of Golconda Now thus it hap- 
pened, that bright and early in the morning the good Antony, 
having washed his burly visage, was leaning over the quarter 
railing of the galley, contemplating it in the glassy wave be- 
low. Just at this moment the illustrious sun, breaking in all 
his splendor from behind a high bluff of the highlands, did dart 
one of his most potent beams full upon the refulgent nose of the 
sounder of brass — the reflection of which shot straightway 
down, hissing hot, into the water and killed a mighty sturgeon 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 133 

u Where 's Van Bummel, the school-master ? " 

" He went off to the wars too, was a great mili- 
tia general, and is now in Congress." 

Kip's heart died away at hearing of these sad 
changes in his home and friends, and finding him- 
self thus alone in the world. Every answer puz- 
zled him too, by treating of such enormous lapses 
of time, and of matters which he could not under- 
stand : war — Congress — Stony Point ; — he had 
no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried 
out in despair, " Does nobody here know Rip Van 
Winkle ? " 

"Ob, Rip Van Winkle ! " exclaimed two or 
three, " Oh, to be sure ! that 's Rip Van Winkle 
yonder, leaning against the tree." 

Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of 
himself, as he went up the mountain : apparently 
as lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow 
was now completely confounded. He doubted his 
own identity, and whether he was himself or an- 
other man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the 
man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and 
what was his name ? 

" God knows," exclaimed he at his wit's end ; 
" I 'm not myself — I 'm somebody else — that 's 
me yonder — no — .that 's somebody else got into 

that was sporting beside the vessel ! . . . . When this aston- 
ishing miracle came to be made known to Peter Stuyvesant he 
. . . . marvelled exceedingly ; and as a monument thereof, 
he gave the name of Antony' 1 s Nose to a stout promontory in the 
neighborhood, and it has continued to be called Antony's Nose 
ever since that time." History of New York, book VI. chap. 4. 



134 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

my shoes — I was myself last night, but I fell 
asleep on the mountain, and they 've changed my 
gun, and everything 's changed, and I 'm changed, 
and I can't tell what 's my name, or who I am ! " 

The bystanders began now to look at each other, 
nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against 
their foreheads. There was a whisper, also, about 
securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from 
doing mischief, at the very suggestion of which the 
self-important man in the cocked hat retired with 
some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, 
comely woman pressed through the throng to get a 
peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby 
child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, 
began to cry. "Hush, Kip," cried she, "hush, you 
little fool ; the old man won't hurt you." The name 
of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her 
voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his 
mind. " What is your name, my good woman ? " 
asked he. 

"Judith Gardenier." 

" And your father's name? " 

" Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, 
but it 's twenty years since he went away from home 
with his gun, and never has been heard of since, — 
his dog came home without him; but whether he 
shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, 
nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl." 

Rip had but one question more to ask ; and he 
put it with a faltering voice : — 

" Where 's your mother ? " 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 135 

" Oh, she too had died but a short time since ; 
she broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New 
England peddler." 

There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this in- 
telligence. The honest man could contain himself 
no longer. He caught his daughter and her child 
in his arms. " I am your father ! " cried he — 
" Young Rip Van Winkle once — old Rip Van 
Winkle now ! Does nobody know poor Rip Van 
Winkle ? " 

All stood amazed, until an old woman tottering 
out from among the crowd, put her hand to her 
brow, and peering under it in his face for a mo- 
ment, exclaimed, " Sure enough ! it is Rip Van 
Winkle — it is himself ! Welcome home again, old 
neighbor — Why, where have you been these twenty 
long years ? " 

Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty 
years had been to him but as one night. The 
neighbors stared when they heard it; some were 
seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues 
in their cheeks ; and the self-important man in the 
cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had re- 
turned to the field, screwed down the corners of his 
mouth, and shook his head — upon which there was 
a general shaking of the head throughout the as- 
semblage. 

It was determined, however, to take the opinion 

of old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly 

advancing up the road. He was a descendant of 

the historian of that name, 1 who wrote one of the 

1 Adrian Vanderdonk. 



136 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the 
most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well 
versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of 
the neighborhood. He recollected Rip at once, 
and corroborated his story in the most satisfactory 
manner. He assured the company that it was a 
fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, 
that the Kaatskill Mountains had always been 
haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed 
that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discov- 
erer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil 
there every twenty years, with his crew of the 
Half -moon ; being permitted in this way to revisit 
the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian 
eye upon the river, and the great city called by his 
name. That his father had once seen them in their 
old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in a hollow 
of the mountain ; and that he himself had heard, 
one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like 
distant peals of thunder. 

To make a long story short, the company broke 
up, and returned to the more important concerns 
of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to 
live with her ; she had a snug, well-furnished house, 
and a stout, cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip 
recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb 
upon his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was 
the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, 
he was employed to work on the farm ; but evinced 
an hereditary disposition to attend to anything else 
but his business. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 137 

Rip now resumed his old walks and habits ; he 
soon found many of his former cronies, though all 
rather the worse for the wear and tear of time ; 
and preferred making friends among the rising 
generation, with whom he soon grew into great 
favor. 

Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived 
at that happy age when a man can be idle with im- 
punity, he took his place once more on the bench 
at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the 
patriarchs of the village, and a chronicle .of the old 
times " before the war." It was some time before he 
could get into the regular track of gossip, or could 
be made to comprehend the strange events that 
had taken place during his torpor. How that there 
had been a revolutionary war — that the country 
had thrown off the yoke of old England — and that, 
instead of being a subject of his Majesty George 
the Third, he was now a free citizen of the United 
States. Rip, in fact, was no politician ; the changes 
of states and empires made but little impression 
on him ; but there was one species of despotism 
under which he had long groaned, and that was — 
petticoat government. Happily that was at an end ; 
he had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony, 
and could go in and out whenever he pleased, with- 
out dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. 
Whenever her name was mentioned, however, he 
shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast 
up his eyes, which might pass either for an ex- 
pression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his 
deliverance. 



138 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

He used to tell his story to every stranger that 
arrived at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, 
at first, to vary on some points every time he told 
it, which was, doubtless, owing to his having so re- 
cently awaked. It at last settled down precisely 
to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, 
or child in the neighborhood but knew it by heart. 
Some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, 
and insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and 
that this was one point on which he always re- 
mained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, how- 
ever, almost universally gave it full credit. Even 
to this day they never hear a thunder-storm of a 
summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say 
Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game 
of nine-pins ; and it is a common wish of all hen- 
pecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life 
hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have 
a quieting draught out of Rip Yan Winkle's flagon. 



NOTE. 



The foregoing Tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to 
Mr. Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the 
Emperor Frederick der Rothbart, 1 and the Kypphaiiser moun- 
tain; the subjoined note, however, which he had appended to 
the tale, shows that it is an absolute fact, narrated with his usual 
fidelity. 

" The story of Eip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, 

1 Frederick I. of Germany, 1121-1190, called Barbarossa der Rothbart 
(Redbeard, or Rufus), was fabled not to have died but to have gone into 
a long sleep, and that he would awake when Germany should need him. 
The same legend was told by the Danes of their Holger. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 139 

but nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity 
of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to mar- 
vellous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many 
stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson ; all 
of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have 
even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when last I saw 
him, was a very venerable old man, and so perfectly rational and 
consistent on every other point, that I think no conscientious 
person could refuse to take this into the bargain ; nay, I have 
seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice and 
signed with a cross, in the justice's own handwriting. The story, 
therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt. 

"D. K." 

POSTSCRIPT. 

The following are travelling notes from a memorandum-book 
of Mr. Knickerbocker : — 

The Kaatsberg, or Catskill Mountains, have always been a 
region full of fable. The Indians considered them the abode of 
spirits, who influenced the weather, spreading sunshine or clouds 
over the landscape, and sending good or bad hunting seasons. 
They were ruled by an old squaw spirit, said to be their mother. 
She dwelt on the highest peak of the Catskills, and had charge 
of the doors of day and night to open and shut them at the proper 
hour. She hung up the new moons in the skies, and cut up the 
old ones into stars. In times of drought, if properly propitiated, 
she would spin light summer clouds out of cobwebs and morning 
dew, and send them off from the crest of the mountain, flake 
after flake, like flakes of carded cotton, to float in the air ; until, 
dissolved by the heat of the sun, they would fall in gentle show- 
ers, causing the grass to spring, the fruits to ripen, and the corn 
to grow an inch an hour. If displeased, however, she would 
brew up clouds black as ink, sitting in the midst of them like a 
bottle-bellied spider in the midst of its web ; and when these 
clouds broke, woe betide the valleys ! 

In old times, say the Indian traditions, there was a kind of 
Manitou or Spirit, who kept about the wildest recesses of the 
Catskill Mountains, and took a mischievous pleasure in wreaking 
all kinds of evils and vexations upon the red men. Sometimes 
he would assume the form of a bear, a panther, or a deer, lead 



140 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the bewildered hunter a weary chase throught angled forests and 
among ragged rocks ; and then spring off with a loud ho ! ho ! 
leaving him aghast on the brink of a beetling precipice or rag- 
ing torrent. 

The favorite abode of this Manitou is still shown. It is a great 
rock or cliff on the loneliest part of the mountains, and, from the 
flowering vines which clamber about it, and the wild flowers 
which abound in its neighborhood, is known by the name of the 
Garden Rock. Near the foot of it is as mall lake, the haunt of 
the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the sun on the 
leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface. This place was 
held in great awe by the Indians, insomuch that the boldest 
hunter would not pursue his game within its precincts. Once 
upon a time, however, a hunter, who had lost his way, penetrated 
to the Garden Rock, where he beheld a number of gourds placed 
in the crotches of trees. One of these he seized and made off 
with it, but in the hurry of his retreat he let it fall among the 
rocks, when a great stream gushed forth, which washed him 
away and swept him down precipices, where he was dashed to 
pieces, and the stream made its way to the Hudson, and contin- 
ues to flow to the present day ; being the identical stream known 
by the name of the Kaaters-kill. 



II. 

LITTLE BRITAIN. 



What I write is most true .... I have a whole booke of cases 
lying by me which if I should sette foorth, some grave auntients 
(within the hearing of Bow bell) would be out of charity with me. 

Nashe. 

In the centre of the great city of London lies, a 
small neighborhood, consisting of a cluster of nar- 
row streets and courts, of very venerable and de- 
bilitated houses, which goes by the name of Little 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 141 

Britain. Christ Church School, 1 and St. Bar- 
tholomew's Hospital 2 bound it on the west ; Smith- 
field 3 and Long Lane on the north ; Aldersgate 
Street, like an arm of the sea, divides it from the 
eastern part of the city ; whilst the yawning gulf of 
Bull-and-Mouth Street separates it from Butcher 
Lane, and the regions of Newgate. Over this little 
territory, thus bounded and designated, the great 
dome of St. Paul's, swelling above the intervening 
houses of Paternoster How, Amen Corner, and Ave 
Maria Lane, looks down with an air of motherly 
protection. 

This quarter derives its appellation from having 
been, in ancient times, the residence of the Dukes 
of Brittany. As London increased, however, rank 
and fashion rolled off to the west, and trade, creep- 
ing on at their heels, took possession of their de- 
serted abodes. For some time Little Britain be- 
came the great mart of learning, and was peopled 
by the busy and prolific race of booksellers ; these 
also gradually deserted it, and, emigrating beyond 
the great strait of Newgate Street, settled down in 
Paternoster Row and St. Paul's Churchyard, where 

1 More accurately Christ's Hospital, popularly known as The 
Blue Coat School, an old and famous school originally intended 
as a home for foundlings and fatherless children. Charles Lamb 
in Essays of E 'Ha has some charming papers, Recollections of 
Christ's Hospital and Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years 
Ago. 

2 The earliest institution of the kind in London, founded in 
1102. 

8 Famous as the scene of Wat Tyler's death, and of martyr- 
doms for religion under Henry VIII., Mary, and Elizabeth. 



142 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

they continue to increase and multiply even at the 
present day. 

But though thus falling into decline, Little Brit- 
ain still bears traces of its former splendor. There 
are several houses ready to tumble down, the 
fronts of which are magnificently enriched with old 
oaken carvings of hideous faces, unknown birds, 
beasts, and fishes : and fruits and flowers which it 
would perplex a naturalist to classify. There are 
also, in Aldersgate Street, certain remains of what 
were once spacious and lordly family mansions, but 
which have in latter days been subdivided into sev- 
eral tenements. Here may often be found the 
family of a petty tradesman, with its trumpery fur- 
niture, burrowing among the relics of antiquated 
finery, in great, rambling, time-stained apartments, 
with fretted ceilings, gilded cornices, and enormous 
marble fireplaces. The lanes and courts also con- 
tain many smaller houses, not on so grand a scale, 
but, like your small ancient gentry, sturdily main- 
taining their claims to equal antiquity. These 
have their gable ends to the street ; great bow- win- 
dows, with diamond panes set in lead, grotesque 
carvings, and low arched door-ways. 1 

In this most venerable and sheltered little nest 
have I passed several quiet years of existence, 2 com- 

1 It is evident that the author of this interesting communica- 
tion has included, in his general title of Little Britain, many of 
those little lanes and courts that belong immediately to Cloth 
Fair. — Irving'' 's Note. 

2 It must be remembered that it is Geoffrey Crayon who is 
writing, and not Washington Irving. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 143 

fortably lodged in the second floor of one of the 
smallest but oldest edifices. My sitting-room is an 
old wainscoted chamber, with small panels, and set 
off with a miscellaneous array of furniture. I have 
a particular respect for three or four high-backed 
claw-footed chairs, covered with tarnished brocade, 
which bear the marks of having seen better days, 
and have doubtless figured in some of the old pal- 
aces of Little Britain. They seem to me to keep 
together, and to look down with sovereign con- 
tempt upon their leathern-bottomed neighbors : as 
I have seen decayed gentry carry a high head 
among the plebeian society with which they were 
reduced to associate. The whole front of my sit- 
ting-room is taken up with a bow-window, on the 
panes of which are recorded the names of previ- 
ous occupants for many generations, mingled with 
scraps of very indifferent gentlemanlike poetry, 
written in characters which I can scarcely deci- 
pher, and which extol the charms of many a beauty 
of Little Britain, who has long, long since bloomed, 
faded, and passed away. As I am an idle person- 
age, with no apparent occupation, and pay my bill 
regularly every week, I am looked upon as the 
only independent gentleman of the neighborhood ; 
and, being curious to learn the internal state of a 
community so apparently shut up within itself, I 
have managed to work my way into all the con- 
cerns and secrets of the place. 

Little Britain may truly be called the heart's 
core of the city ; the stronghold of true John Bull- 



144 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ism. It is a fragment of London as it was in its 
better days, with its antiquated folks and fashions. 
Here flourish in great preservation many of the 
holiday games and customs of yore. The inhab- 
itants most religiously eat pancakes on Shrove 
Tuesday, hot-cross-buns on Good Friday, and roast 
goose at Michaelmas ; they send love-letters on Val- 
entine's Day, burn the pope on the fifth of Novem- 
ber, 1 and kiss all the girls under the mistletoe at 
Christmas. Roast beef and plum-pudding are also 
held in superstitious veneration, and port and sherry 
maintain their grounds as the only true English 
wines ; all others being considered vile, outlandish 
beverages. 

Little Britain has its long catalogue of city won 
ders, which its inhabitants consider the wonders 
of the world ; such as the great bell of St. Paul's, 
which sours all the beer when it tolls ; the figures 
that strike the hours at St. Dunstan's clock ; the 
Monument ; 2 the lions in the Tower ; and the 
wooden giants 3 in Guildhall. They still believe in 
dreams and fortune-telling, and an old woman that 
lives in Bull-and-Mouth Street makes a tolerable 
subsistence by detecting stolen goods, and promis- 
ing the girls good husbands. They are apt to be 
rendered uncomfortable by comets and eclipses ; 

1 The anniversary of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. 
Pope's Day, as it was called, was observed in New England un- 
til near the end of the last century. ' 

2 To commemorate the Great Fire of London, September, 
1666. 

3 Known as Gog and Magog. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 145 

and if a dog howls dolefully at night, it is looked 
upon as a sure sign of a death in the place. There 
are even many ghost stories current, particularly 
concerning the old mansion-houses ; in several of 
which it is said strange sights are sometimes seen. 
Lords and ladies, the former in full bottomed wigs, 
hanging sleeves, and swords, the latter in lappets, 
stays, hoops, and brocade, have been seen walking 
up and down the great waste chambers, on moon- 
light nights ; and are supposed to be the shades of 
the ancient proprietors in their court-dresses. 

Little Britain has likewise its sages and great 
men. One of the most important of the former is 
a tall, dry old gentleman, of the name of Skryme, 
who keeps a small apothecary's shop. He has a 
cadaverous countenance, full of cavities and j^rojec- 
tions ; with a brown circle round • each eye, like a 
pair of horned spectacles. He is much thought of 
by the old women, who consider him as a kind of 
conjuror, because he has two or three stuffed alli- 
gators hanging up in his shop, and several snakes 
in bottles. He is a great reader of almanacs and 
newspapers, and is much given to pore over alarm- 
ing accounts of plots, conspiracies, fires, earth- 
quakes, and volcanic eruptions ; which last phe- 
nomena he considers as signs of the times. He has 
always some dismal tale of the kind to deal out to 
his customers, with their doses ; and thus at the 
same time puts both soul and body into an uproar. 
He is a great believer in omens and predictions ; 
10 



146 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

and has the prophecies of Robert Nixon * and 
Mother Shipton 2 by heart. No man can make so 
much out of an eclipse, or even an unusually dark 
day; and he shook the tail of the last comet over 
the heads of his customers and disciples until they 
were nearly frightened out of their wits. He has 
lately got hold of a popular legend or prophecy, 
on which he has been unusually eloquent. There 
has been a saying current among the ancient sibyls, 
who treasure up these things, that when the grass- 
hopper on the top of the Exchange shook hands 
with the dragon on the top of Bow Church steeple, 
fearful events would take place. This strange con- 
junction, it seems, has as strangely come to pass. 
The same architect has been engaged lately on the 
repairs of the cupola of the Exchange, and the 
steeple of Bow Church ; and, fearful to relate, the 
dragon and the grasshopper actually lie, cheek by 
jole, in the yard of his workshop. 

" Others," as Mr. Skryme is accustomed to say, 
" may go star-gazing, and look for conjunctions in 
the heavens, but here is a conjunction on the earth, 
near at home, and under our own eyes, which sur- 
passes all the signs and calculations of astrologers." 
Since these portentous weathercocks have thus laid 

1 Known as the Cheshire Idiot, a contemporary of Mother 
Shipton, and reckoned a poet. See Memoirs of Extraordinary 
Popular Delusions, by Charles Mackay, vol. i. pp. 196-201. 

2 A woman said to have been living in Yorkshire in the time 
of Henry VII., and to have had prophetic power. Many of her 
prophecies, in rhyme, are in the mouths of half-educated people 
in England to-day, and their fulfilment looked for. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 147 

their heads together, wonderful events had already 
occurred. The good old king, 1 notwithstanding 
that he had lived eighty-two years, had all at once 
given up the ghost ; another king had mounted the 
throne ; a royal duke had died suddenly 2 — an- 
other, in France, had been murdered ; 3 there had 
been radical meetings in all parts of the kingdom ; 
the bloody scenes at Manchester ; 4 the great plot 
in Cato Street ; 5 — and, above all, the queen had 
returned to England ! 6 All these sinister events 

1 George III., who died January 29, 1820, and was succeeded 
by George IV. 

2 The Duke of Kent, who died in 1820. 

3 The Duke of Berri, second in succession to the crown, who 
was assassinated in 1820. 

4 There had been a period of great suffering in England and a 
chronic discontent at the existing order of things, when in Au- 
gust, 1819, an immense meeting, in opposition to the govern- 
ment, was held at Manchester. Troops were on the ground, and 
in a sudden panic the magistrates ordered a charge which had a 
frightful result. 

5 The Cato Street Conspiracy was a plot to murder all the 
ministers of the crown at a cabinet dinner to be held February 
23, 1820, to fire the barracks, and make an assault upon the Bank 
of England and the Tower. It was the scheme of a few desper- 
ate men in the time of great popular discontent with the govern- 
ment. 

6 Caroline, queen of King George IV. She had gone to the 
Continent in 1814, driven there by the persecution of her hus- 
band then Prince Regent. She returned in 1820 to vindicate 
her rights, and all England was divided into two parties upon 
the question of her innocency. A bill was introduced into Parlia- 
ment for her deposition as queen and her divorce from the king, 
but finally failed. Her acquittal was followed by immense pop- 
ular rejoicings, but her own imprudence partly cooled the public 
sympathy, and her death, in August, 1820, shortly after the 
king's coronation, came in season to save her from further dis- 
aster. 



148 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

are recounted by Mr. Skryme, with a mysterious 
look, and a dismal shake of the head ; and beinc* 
taken with his drugs, and associated in the minds 
of his auditors with stuffed sea-monsters, bottled 
serpents, and his own visage, which is a title-page 
of tribulation, they have spread great gloom through 
the minds of the people of Little Britain. They 
shake their heads whenever they go by Bow Church, 
and observe, that they never expected any good to 
come of taking down that steeple, which in old 
times told nothing but glad tidings, as the history 
of Whittington and his Cat bears witness. 

The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial 
cheesemonger, who lives in a fragment of one of 
the old family mansions, and is as magnificently 
lodged as a round-bellied mite in the midst of one 
of his own Cheshires. Indeed, he is a man of no 
little standing and importance ; and his renown ex- 
tends through Huggin Lane, and Lad Lane, and 
even unto Aldermanbury. His opinion is very 
much taken in affairs of state, having read the Sun- 
day papers for the last half century, together with 
the " Gentleman's Magazine," Rapin's u History of 
England," and the " Naval Chronicle." His head 
is stored with invaluable maxims which have borne 
the test of time and use for centuries. It is his 
firm opinion that " it is a moral impossible," so long 
as England is true to herself, that anything can 
shake her: and he has much to say on the subject 
of the national debt ; which, somehow or other, he 
proves to be a great national bulwark and blessing. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 149 

He passed the greater part of his life in the pur- 
lieus of Little Britain, until of late years, when, 
having become rich, and grown into the dignity of 
a Sunday cane, he begins to take his pleasure and 
see the world. He has therefore made several ex- 
cursions to Hampstead, Highgate, and other neigh- 
boring towns, where he has passed whole afternoons 
in looking back upon the metropolis through a 
telescope, and endeavoring to descry the steeple of 
St. Bartholomew's. Not a stage-coachman of Bull- 
and-Mouth Street but touches his hat as he passes ; 
and he is considered quite a patron at the coach- 
office of the Goose and Gridiron, St. Paul's Church- 
yard. His family have been very urgent for him 
to make an expedition to Margate, but he has great 
doubts of those new gimcracks, the steamboats, and 
indeed thinks himself too advanced in life to under- 
take sea-voyages. 

Little Britain has occasionally its factions and 
divisions, and party spirit ran very high at one time 
in consequence of two rival " Burial Societies " 
being set up in the place. One held its meeting 
at the Swan and Horse Shoe, 1 and was patronized 

1 It is just possible that this may have been The Swan and 
Harp. "The Mitre was a celebrated music-house in London 
House Yard at the northwest end of St. Paul's. "When it ceased 
to be a music-house the succeeding landlord, to ridicule its for- 
mer destiny, chose for his sign a goose stroking the bars of a 
gridiron with his foot (The Goose and Gridiron) in ridicule of 
the Swan and Harp, a common sign for the early music-houses. 
Such an origin does the Tatler give ; but it may also be a ver- 
nacular reading of the coat of arms of the Company of Musi- 
cians, suspended probably at the door of the Mitre when it was a 



150 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

by the cheesemonger ; the other at the Cock and 
Crown, under the auspices of the apothecary ; it is 
needless to say that the latter was the most flourish- 
ing. I have passed an evening or two at each, and 
have acquired much valuable information, as to the 
best mode of being buried, the comparative merits 
of churchyards, together with divers hints on the 
subject of patent-iron coffins. I have heard the 
question discussed in all its bearings as to the le- 
gality of prohibiting the latter on account of their 
durability. The feuds occasioned by these societies 
have happily died of late ; but they were for a long 
time prevailing themes of controversy, the people 
of Little Britain being extremely solicitous of fu- 
nereal honors and of lying comfortably in their 
graves. 

Besides these two funeral societies there is a third 
of quite a different cast, which tends to throw the 
sunshine of good-humor over the whole neighbor- 
hood. It meets once a week at a little old-fashioned 
house, kept by a jolly publican of the name of 
Wagstaff, and bearing for insignia a resplendent 
half-moon, with a most seductive bunch of grapes. 
The old edifice is covered with inscriptions to catch 
the eye of the thirsty wayfarer, such as " Truman, 
Hanbury, and Co.'s Entire," " Wine, Rum, and 

music-house. These arms are, a swan with his wings expanded, 
within a double tressure, counter, floiy, argent. This double 
tressure might have suggested a gridiron to unsophisticated pass- 
ers-by." — The History of Signboards, by Jacob Larwood and 
John Camden Hotten, pp. 445, 446. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 151 

Brandy Vaults," " Old Tom, Rum and Compounds, 
etc." This indeed has been a temple of Bacchus 
and Momus from time immemorial. It has always 
been in the family of the Wagstaffs, so that its 
history is tolerably preserved by the present land- 
lord. It was much frequented by the gallants and 
cavalieros of the reign of Elizabeth, and was looked 
into now and then by the wits of Charles the 
Second's day. But what Wagstaff principally 
prides himself upon is, that Henry the Eighth, in 
one of his nocturnal rambles, broke the head of one 
of his ancestors with his famous walking-staff. This, 
however, is considered as a rather dubious and vain- 
glorious boast of the landlord. 

The club which now holds its weekly sessions 
here goes by the name of " The Roaring Lads of 
Little Britain." They abound in old catches, glees, 
and choice stories, that are traditional in the place, 
and not to be met with in any other part of the 
metropolis. There is a madcap undertaker who 
is inimitable at a merry song ; but the life of the 
club, and indeed the prime wit of Little Britain, is 
bully Wagstaff himself. His ancestors were all 
wags before him, and he has inherited with the inn 
a large stock of songs and jokes, which go with it 
from generation to generation as heirlooms. He 
is a dapper little fellow, with bandy legs and pot 
belly, a red face, with a moist, merry eye, and a 
little shock of gray hair behind. At the opening 
of every club night he is called in to sing his 
" Confession pf Faith," which is the famous old 



152 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

drinking trowl from " Gammer Gurton's Needle." 1 
He sings it, to be sure, with many variations, as he 
received it from his father's lips ; for it has been a 
standing favorite at the Half-Moon and Bunch of 
Grapes ever since it was written : nay, he affirms 
that his predecessors have often had the honor of 
singing it before the nobility and gentry at Christ- 
mas mummeries, when Little Britain was in all its 
glory. 2 

1 Gammer Gurton's Needle is the name of a dramatic piece 
by John Still, afterward Bishop of Bath and Wells, said to be 
the second English comedy in point of time. It "was written 
about the time of Shakespeare's birth, and turns on the rustic 
adventures of Gammer Gurton who lost her needle, — a very 
precious piece of property in those days, — and found it finally 
in the breeches of her man Hodge, where she had left it when at 
her work. 

2 As mine host of the Half-Moon's Confession of Faith may 
not be familiar to the majority of readers, and as it is a specimen 
of the current songs of Little Britain, I subjoin it in its original 
orthography. I would observe, that the whole club always join 
in the chorus with a fearful thumping on the table and clattering 
of pewter pots. W. I. 

" I cannot eate but lytle meate, 
My stomacke is not good, 
But sure I thinke that I can drinke 

With him that weares a hood. 
Though I go bare, take ye no care, 

I nothing am a colde, 
I stuff my skyn so full within, 
Of joly good ale and olde. 
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare, 
Booth foote and band go colde, 
But belly, God send tbee good ale ynoughe 
Wbetber it be new or olde. 

" I have no rost, but a nut brawne toste, 
And a orab laid in tbe fyre ; 
A little breade shall do me steade, 
Much breade I not deeyre. 



. LITTLE BRITAIN. 153 

It would do one's heart good to hear, on a club 
night, the shouts of merriment, the snatches of song, 
and now and then the choral bursts of half a dozen 
discordant voices, which issue from this jovial man- 
sion. At such times the street is lined with listen- 
ers, who enjoy a delight equal to that of gazing 
into a confectioner's window, or snuffing up the 
steams of a cookshop. 

There are two annual events which produce 
great stir and sensation in Little Britain; these 
are St. Bartholomew's Fair, 1 and the Lord Mayor's 

No frost nor snow, nor winde, I trowe, 

Can hurte mee, if I wolde, 
I am so wrapt and throwly lapt 
Of jo]y good ale and olde. 
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc. 

" And Tyb my wife, that, as ber lyfe, 
Loyetb well good ale to seeke, 
Full oft drynkes shee, tyll ye may see, 

Tbe teares run downe ber cheeke. 
Tben dotb sbe trowle to me tbe bowle, 

Even as a mault-worme sbolde, 
And saytb, sweete barte, I took my parte 
Of tbis joly good ale and olde. 
Chorus. JBacke and syde go bare, go bare, etc. 

" Now let tbem drynke, tyll tbey nod and winke 
Even as goode fellowes sbolde doe, 
They shall not mysse to have the blisse, 

Good ale doth bring men to ; 
And all poore soules that have scowred bowles 

Or have them lustily trolde, 
God save the lyves of them and their wives, 
Whether they be yonge or olde. 
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare," etc. 

1 A famous annual fair, so called because it was kept at Bar- 
tholomew Tide (St. Bartholomew's Day is August 24th), and 
held within the precinct of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield. It 



154 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Day. During the time of the fair, which is held in 
the adjoining regions of Smithfleld, there is nothing 
going on but gossiping and gadding about. The 
late quiet streets of Little Britain are overrun with 
an irruption of strange figures and faces ; every 
tavern is a scene of rout and revel. The fiddle 
and the song are heard from the tap-room, morning, 
noon, and night ; and at each window may be seen 
some group of boon companions, with half-shut 
eyes, hats on one side, pipe in mouth, and tankard 
in hand, fondling, and prosing, and singing maudlin 
songs over their liquor. Even the sober decorum 
of private families, which I must say is rigidly kept 
up at other times among my neighbors, is no proof 
against this Saturnalia. There is no such thing as 
keeping maid-servants within doors. Their brains 
are absolutely set madding with Punch and the 
Puppet Show ; the Flying Horses ; Signior Polito ; 1 
the Fire-Eater ; the celebrated Mr. Paap ; and the 
Irish Giant. The children, too, lavish all their holi- 
day money in toys and gilt gingerbread, and fill the 
house with the Lilliputian din of drums, trumpets, 
and penny whistles. 

But the Lord Mayor's Day 2 is the great anni- 

was for several centuries the great Cloth Fair of England. It 
became afterward a kind of Carnival, and finally degenerating 
into a public nuisance, died out of public notice. 

1 The showman -of a menagerie of that day. 

2 On the 9th of November each year the mayor of London goes 
up to Westminster to be sworn into office. The pageant was 
once a striking and brilliant one, when it was significant of the 
political importance of the city of London. It is still kept up, 
but is a mere mockery of its old splendor. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 155 

versary. The Lord Mayor is looked up to by the 
inhabitants of Little Britain as the greatest poten- 
tate upon earth ; his gilt coach with six horses as 
the summit of human splendor ; and his procession, 
with all the Sheriffs and Aldermen in his train, as 
the grandest of earthly pageants. How they exult 
in the idea that the King himself dare not enter 
the city without first knocking at the gate of 
Temple Bar, and asking permission of the Lord 
Mayor : for if he did, heaven and earth ! there is 
no knowing what might be the consequence. The 
man in armor who rides before the Lord Mayor, 
and is the city champion, has orders to cut' down 
everybody that offends against the dignity of the 
city ; and then there is the little man with a velvet 
porringer on his head, who sits at the window of 
the state-coach, and holds the city sword, as long 
as a pike-staff — Odd's blood! If he once draws 
that sword, Majesty itself is not safe ! 

Under the protection of this mighty potentate, 
therefore, the good people of Little Britain sleep in 
peace. Temple Bar is an effectual barrier against 
all interior foes ; and as to foreign invasion, the 
Lord Mayor has but to throw himself into the 
Tower, call in the train-bands, and put the standing 
army of Beef-eaters 1 under arms, and he may bid 
defiance to the world ! 

1 The yeomen of the Eoyal Guard who are attached to the serv- 
ice of the Tower are popularly called Beef-eaters, a corruption, 
we are told, of buffetiers, that is, personal attendants of the sov- 
ereign, who on high festivals were ranged near the royal side- 
board or buffet. 



156 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Thus wrapped up in its own concerns, its own 
habits, and its own opinions, Little Britain has long 
flourished as a sound heart to this great fungous 
metropolis. I have pleased myself with consider- 
ing it as a chosen spot, where the principles of 
sturdy John Bullism were garnered up, like seed 
corn, to renew the national character, when it had 
run to waste and degeneracy. I have rejoiced also 
in the general spirit of harmony that prevailed 
throughout it; for though there might now and 
then be a few clashes of opinion between the ad- 
herents of the cheesemonger and the apothecary, 
and an occasional feud between the burial societies, 
yet these were but transient clouds, and soon 
passed away. The neighbors met with good-will, 
parted with a shake of the hand, and never abused 
each other except behind their backs. 

I could give rare descriptions of snug junketing 
parties at which I have been present ; where we 
played at All-Fours, Pope-Joan, Tom-come-tickle- 
me, and other choice old games ; and where we 
sometimes had a good old English country dance 
to the tune of Sir Roger de Coverley. 1 Once a 
year, also, the neighbors would gather together, and 
go on a gipsy party to Epping Forest. 2 It would 

1 In the time of Richard I. there was a Sir Roger of Calverley, 
after whom a tune was named which was long the air of a coun- 
try dance, which by custom was invariably made the conclusion 
of balls. The name underwent the slight change into the form 
which it held in Addison's time, and he and Steele at Swift's sug- 
gestion used it as the name of the knight whose character and 
fortune constitute the most charming portion of The Spectator. 

2 A famous royal preserve, sixteen miles from London. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 157 

have done any man's heart good to see the merri- 
ment that took place here as we banqueted on the 
grass under the trees. How we made the woods 
ring with bursts of laughter at the songs of little 
Wagstaff and the merry undertaker ! After din- 
ner, too, the young folks would play at blind-man's- 
buff and hide-and-seek ; and it was amusiDg to see 
them tangled among the briers, and to hear a fine 
romping girl now and then squeak from among the 
bushes. The elder folks would gather round the 
cheesemonger and the apothecary, to hear them 
talk politics; for they generally brought out a 
newspaper in their pockets, to pass away time in 
the country. They would now and then, to be 
sure, get a little warm in argument ; but their dis- 
putes were always adjusted by reference to a 
worthy old umbrella-maker, in a double chin, who, 
never exactly comprehending the subject, managed 
somehow or other to decide in favor of both par- 
ties. 

All empires, however, says some philosopher or 
historian, are doomed to changes and revolutions. 
Luxury and innovation creep in ; factions arise ; 
and families now and then spring up, whose ambi- 
tion and intrigues throw the whole system into con- 
fusion. Thus in latter days has the tranquillity of 
Little Britain been grievously disturbed, and its 
golden simplicity of manners threatened with total 
subversion by the aspiring family of a retired 
butcher. 

The family of the Lambs had long been among 



l58 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the most thriving and popular in the neighborhood ; 
the Miss Lambs were the belles of Little Britain, 
and everybody was pleased when Old Lamb had 
made money enough to shut up shop, and put his 
name on a brass plate on his door. In an evil 
hour, however, one of the Miss Lambs had the 
honor of being a lady in attendance on the Lady 
Mayoress, at her grand annual ball, on which occa- 
sion she wore three towering ostrich feathers on her 
head. The family never got over it ; they were 
immediately smitten with a passion for high life ; 
set up a one-horse carriage, put a bit of gold lace 
round the errand boy's hat, and have been the talk 
and detestation of the whole neighborhood ever 
since. They could no longer be induced to play 
at Pope-Joan or blind-man's-buff ; they could en- 
dure no dances but quadrilles, which nobody had 
ever heard of in Little Britain ; and they took to 
reading novels, talking bad French, and playing 
upon the piano. Their brother, too, who had been 
articled to an attorney, set up for a dandy and a 
critic, characters hitherto unknown in these parts ; 
and he confounded the worthy folks exceedingly by 
talking about Kean, 1 the opera, and the " Edinburgh 
Review." 

What was still worse, the Lambs gave a grand 
ball, to which they neglected to invite any of their 
old neighbors ; but they had a great deal of genteel 
company from Theobald's Road, Red-Lion Square, 

1 Edmund Kean, a celebrated English tragedian, who died in 
1833. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 159 

and other parts towards the west. There were 
several beaux of their brother's acquaintance from 
Gray's Inn Lane and Hatton Garden; and not less 
than three Aldermen's ladies with their daughters. 
This was not to be forgotten or forgiven. All Lit- 
tle Britain was in an uproar with the smacking of 
whips, the lashing of miserable horses, and the 
rattling and the jingling of hackney coaches. The 
gossips of the neighborhood might be seen popping 
their nightcaps out at every window, watching the 
crazy vehicles rumble by ; and there was a knot 
of virulent old cronies, that kept a lookout from 
a house just opposite the retired butcher's, and 
scanned and criticised every one that knocked at 
the door. 

This dance was a cause of almost open war, and 
the whole neighborhood declared they would have 
nothing more to say to the Lambs. It is true that 
Mrs. Lamb, when she had no engagements with 
her quality acquaintance, would give little humdrum 
tea-junketings to some of her old cronies, " quite," 
as she would say, " in a friendly way ; " and it is 
equally true that her invitations were always ac- 
cepted, in spite of all previous vows to the contrary. 
Nay, the good ladies would sit and be delighted 
with the music of the Miss Lambs, who would con- 
descend to strum an Irish melody for them on the 
piano ; and they would listen with wonderful inter- 
est to Mrs. Lamb's anecdotes of Alderman Plun- 
ket's family, of Portsokenward, and the Miss Tim- 
berlakes, the rich heiresses of Crutched-Friars ; but 



160 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

then they relieved their consciences, and averted 
the reproaches of their confederates, by canvassing 
at the next gossiping convocation everything that 
had passed, and pulling the Lambs and their rout 
all to pieces. 

The only one of the family that could not be 
made fashionable was the retired butcher himself. 
Honest Lamb, in spite of the meekness of his name, 
was a rough, hearty old fellow, with the voice of a 
lion, a head of black hair like a shoe-brush, and a 
broad face mottled like his own beef. It was in 
vain that the daughters always spoke of him as 
" the old gentleman," addressed him as " papa," in 
tones of infinite softness, and endeavored to coax 
him into a dressing-gown and slippers, and other 
gentlemanly habits. Do what they might, there 
was no keeping down the butcher. His sturdy nat- 
ure would break through all their glozings. He 
had a hearty vulgar good-humor that was irrepres- 
sible. His very jokes made his sensitive daughters 
shudder ; and he persisted in wearing his blue cot- 
ton coat of a morning, dining at two o'clock, and 
having a " bit of sausage with his tea." 

He was doomed, however, to share the unpopu- 
larity of his family. He found his old comrades 
gradually growing cold and civil to him ; no longer 
laughing at his jokes ; and now and then throwing 
out a fling at " some people," and a hint about 
"quality binding." This both nettled and per- 
plexed the honest butcher ; and his wife and daugh- 
ters, with the consummate policy of the shrewder 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 161 

sex, taking advantage of the circumstance, at length 
prevailed upon him to give up his afternoon's pipe 
and tankard at Wagstaff's ; to sit after dinner by 
himself, and take his pint of port — a liquor he de- 
tested — and to nod in his chair in solitary and dis- 
mal gentility. 

The Miss Lambs might now be seen flaunting 
along the streets in French bonnets, with unknown 
beaux ; and talking and laughing so loud that it 
distressed the nerves of every good lady within 
hearing. They even went so far as to attempt pat- 
ronage, and actually induced a French dancing- 
master to set up in the neighborhood ; but the wor- 
thy folks of Little Britain took fire at it, and did so 
persecute the poor Gaul that he was fain to pack 
up fiddle and dancing-pumps, and decamp with such 
precipitation that he absolutely forgot to pay for 
his lodgings. 

I had flattered myself, at first, with the idea that 
all this fiery indignation on the part of the com- 
munity was merely the overflowing of their zeal 
for good old English manners, and their horror of 
innovation ; and I applauded the silent contempt 
they were- so vociferous in expressing, for upstart 
pride, French fashions, and the Miss Lambs. But 
I grieve to say that I soon perceived the infection 
had taken hold ; and that my neighbors, after con- 
demning, were beginning to follow their example. 
I overheard my landlady importuning her husband 
to let their daughters have one quarter at French 
and music, and that they might take a few lessons 
■ 11 



162 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

in quadrille. I even saw, in the course of a few 
Sundays, no less than five French bonnets, pre- 
cisely like those of the Miss Lambs, parading about 
Little Britain. 

I still had my hopes that all this folly would 
gradually die away ; that the Lambs might move 
out of the neighborhood ; might die,, or might run 
away with attorneys' apprentices; and that quiet 
and simplicity might be again restored to the com- 
munity. But unluckily a rival power arose. An 
opulent oilman died, and left a widow with a large 
jointure and a family of buxom daughters. The 
young ladies had long been repining in secret at 
the parsimony of a prudent father, which kept 
down all their elegant aspirings. Their ambition, 
being now no longer restrained, broke out into a 
blaze, and they openly took the field against the 
family of the butcher. It is true that the Lambs, 
having had the first start, had naturally an advan- 
tage of them in the fashionable career. They could 
speak a little bad French, play the piano, dance 
quadrilles, and had formed high acquaintances ; but 
the Trotters were not to be distanced. When the 
Lambs appeared with two feathers in their hats, 
the Miss Trotters mounted four, and of twice as 
fine colors. If the Lambs gave -a dance, the Trot- 
ters were sure not to be behindhand : and though 
they might not boast of as good company, yet they 
had double the number, and were twice as merry. 

The whole community has at length divided it- 
self into fashionable factions, under the banners of 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 163 

these two families. The old games of Pope-Joan 
and Tom-come-tickle-me are entirely discarded ; 
there is no such thing as getting up an honest coun- 
try dance ; and on my attempting to kiss a young 
lady under the mistletoe last Christmas, I was in- 
dignantly repulsed ; the Miss Lambs having pro- 
nounced it " shocking vulgar." Bitter rivalry has 
also broken out as to the most fashionable part of 
Little Britain ; the Lambs standing up for the dig- 
nity of Cross-Keys Square, and the Trotters for the 
vicinity of St. Bartholomew's. 

Thus is this little territory torn by factions and 
internal dissensions, like the great empire whose 
name it bears ; and what will be the result would 
puzzle the apothecary himself, with all his talent 
at prognostics, to determine ; though I apprehend 
that it will terminate in the total downfall of genu- 
ine John Bullism. 

The immediate effects are extremely unpleasant 
to me. Being a single man, and, as I observed be- 
fore, rather an idle good-for-nothing personage, I 
have been considered the only gentleman by pro- 
fession in the place. I stand therefore in high 
favor with both parties, and have to hear all their 
cabinet councils and mutual backbitings. As I am 
too civil not to agree with the ladies on all occa- 
sions, I have committed myself most horribly with 
both parties, by abusing their opponents. I might 
manage to reconcile this to my conscience, which 
is a truly accommodating one, but I cannot to my 
apprehension — if the Lambs and Trotters ever 



164 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

come to a reconciliation, and compare notes, I am 
ruined ! 

I have determined, therefore, to beat a retreat 
in time, and am actually looking out for some other 
nest in this great city, where old English manners 
are still kept up ; where French is neither eaten, 
drunk, danced, nor spoken ; and where there are 
no fashionable families of retired tradesmen. This 
found, I will, like a veteran rat, hasten away be- 
fore I have an old house about my ears ; bid a long, 
though a sorrowful, adieu to my present abode, and 
leave the rival factions of the Lambs and the Trot- 
ters to divide the distracted empire of Little 
Britain. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



INTRODUCTION. 

WITH a single exception the prose writings of 
Longfellow all belong to that period of his 
life which was connected with his early travels in 
Europe and the beginning of his professional career 
as a teacher of modern literature. In 1833 he pub- 
lished a translation of a paper on Ancient French 
Romances by Paulin Paris, and an Essay on the 
Moral and Devotional Poetry of Spain. A little 
later appeared Outre-Mer. Between the publica- 
tion of Outre-Mer and Hyperion, which appeared 
in 1839, he contributed those papers to periodicals 
which are included in the third volume of his col- 
lected prose works under the title of Drift- Wood, 
papers on Prithiofs Saga, Hawthorne's Twice- Told 
Tales, The Great Metropolis, Anglo-Saxon Litera- 
ture, and Paris in the Seventeenth Century. A 
period of six years includes these writings, and it 
was not until it closed that he began the publication 
of original verse, his poetic work before this hav- 
ing been in the form of translation from the French 
and Spanish. His prose writings thus precede, in 



166 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

time, his poetry, and they are intimately connected 
with his personal experience and observation as a 
traveller and student. He came back from Europe 
freighted with memories of the Old World, and at 
once began pouring from a full cup the generous 
wine of foreign vineyards. Within the shelter of 
academic life, and under the impulse of a catholic 
zeal for literature, he eagerly offered the treasures 
of art, legend, and history, which had been made 
his own by the appropriating power of an apprecia- 
tive taste, and he inclosed most of his work within 
forms of literary art which served to give continu- 
ity without involution. Thus Outre-Mer is a record 
of travel, continuous in its geographical outline, 
but separated from ordinary itineraries by noting 
less the personal accidents of the traveller than the 
poetic and romantic scenes which, whether in the 
present or the past, marked the journey and trans- 
formed it into the pilgrimage of a devotee to art. 
In Hyperion a more deliberate romance is intended, 
but the lights and shades of the story are height- 
ened or deepened by the passages of travel and 
study, which form the background from which the 
human figures are relieved. It is interesting to ob- 
serve how, as the writer was more withdrawn from 
the actual Europe of his eyes, he used the Europe 
of his memory and imagination to wait upon the 
movements of a profounder study, the adventures 
of a human soul. These two books and the occa- 
sional critical papers, are characterized by a strong 
consciousness of literary art. Life seems always 



INTRODUCTION. 167 

to suggest a book or a picture, and nature is always 
viewed in its immediate relation to form and color. 
There is a singular discovery of the Old World, 
and while European writers, like Chateaubriand for 
example, were turning to America for new and un- 
worn images, Longfellow, reflecting the awaking 
desire for the enduring forms of art which his 
countrymen were showing, eagerly disclosed the 
treasures to which the owners seemed almost in- 
different. It is difficult to measure the influence 
which his broad, catholic taste and his refined 
choice of subjects have had upon American culture 
through the medium of these works, and that large 
body of his poetry which draws an inspiration from 
foreign life. In one of his prose works he makes 
a character say, in answer to a demand for a na- 
tional literature : — 

" Nationality is a good thing to a certain extent, 
but universality is better. All that is best in the 
great poets of all countries is not what is national 
in them, but what is universal. Their roots are in 
their native soil ; but their branches wave in the 
unpatriotic air, that speaks the same language unto 
all men, and their leaves shine with the illimitable 
light that pervades all lands. Let us throw all the 
windows open ; let us admit the light and air on 
all sides ; that we may look toward the four cor- 
ners of the heavens, and not always in the same 
direction." 1 It is this universality of interest 
which rendered the poet so open to the best which 
1 Kavanagh, xx. 



168 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

older life and literature could afford, and he frankly 
reflected it in his writings. " As the blood of all 
nations,'* he continues, " is mingling with our own, 
so will their thoughts and feelings finally mingle in 
our literature. We shall draw from the Germans 
tenderness ; from the Spaniards passion ; from the 
French vivacity, to miugle more and more with our 
English solid sense. And this will give us univer- 
sality so much to be desired." 

Ten years elapsed after the publication of Hy- 
perion before another, and his latest, prose work 
appeared. During that period many of his well 
known shorter poems had been issued and followed 
by The Spanish Student and Evangeline. Two 
years after the publication of this his best known 
work, appeared Kavanagh, a Tale, in 1849. It is 
a prose idyll, the scene laid in a New England, pre- 
sumably Maine, village, and the story gently reflect- 
ing the life of a few typical characters. The style 
is simpler than in his previous prose, and the posi- 
tive presence of the old world life has given place 
to a faint odor of the same which pervades the at- 
mosphere of the book. The stormy passions of 
life are merely hinted at in the story, while the 
more pensive graces and romantic aspirations are 
made to form the tints of the picture. The plot 
is only sketched, for it is in the sentiment of the 
characters that the author, and consequently the 
reader, has his real interest. The student of lit- 
erature sees some traces in it of the influence of 
Jean Paul Richter. It is less studied and less con- 



INTRODUCTION. 169 

scious, but its material is quite as distinctly pure 
sentiment. 

With Kavanagh prose has been left behind, and 
indeed after this the poet has trod with firmer step, 
and with a more marked individuality. That is to 
say, and the lesson is a valuable one to students, 
so far he had been forming his work upon models 
already created and had been advancing as a stu- 
dent in literature while yet using creative power. 
The long apprenticeship which he had been serving 
to great masters was drawing to a close, and he 
was to stand forth more distinctly as himself a 
master. There are few examples in literature, 
none certainly in our own, so instructive of the' 
power which comes from admiration of great work, 
and an imitation which is not servile but fresh, en- 
thusiastic, and with constant reference to new crea- 
tion. The consummate mastery of poetic form 
which displays itself in the sonnets, especially in 
Mr. Longfellow's recent work, may be traced back 
step by step to the patient, untiring study of the 
earlier days. With equal truth it may be said that 
the final exclusion of prose from his composition is 
the result of the gradual perfection of higher forms 
of art and the withdrawal of his attention from the 
mere rescript of material to the creation of self- 
contained art. The attentive reader will discover 
how closely Kavanagh borders upon the poetic in 
form, for it is careless of the details which give 
richness to prose romance, and careful only of the 



170 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

essential facts in which poetry and prose alike are 
concerned. 

The form of Hyperion and Kavanagh renders it 
inexpedient to select detached scenes from them. 
The two chapters which follow are both from Outre- 
Mer. 



I. 

THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 

Je ne conqois qu'une maniere de voyager plus agr^able que (Taller a 
cheval ; c'est d'aller a pied. On part a son moment, on s'arrlte a sa vo- 
lont£, on fait tant et si peu d ; exercise qu'on veut. 

Quand on ne veut qu ; arriver, on peut courir en chaise de poste ; mais 
quand on veut voyager, il faut aller a pied. 

Rousseau. 

In the beautiful month of October, I made a foot 
excursion along the banks of the Loire, from Or- 
leans to Tours. This luxuriant region is justly 
called the garden of France. From Orleans to 
Blois the whole valley of the Loire is one contin- 
ued vineyard. The bright green foliage of the 
vine spreads, like the undulations of the sea, over 
all the landscape, with here and there a silver flash 
of the river, a sequestered hamlet, or the towers of 
an old chateau, to enliven and variegate the scene. 

The vintage had already commenced. The peas- 
antry were busy in the fields, — the song that 
cheered their labor was on the breeze, and the 
heavy wagon tottered by laden with the clusters 
of the vine. Everything around me wore that 
happy look which makes the heart glad. In- the 
morning I arose with the lark ; and at night I slept 
where sunset overtook me. The healthy exercise 
of foot-travelling, the pure, bracing air of autumn, 



172 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

and the cheerful aspect of the whole landscape 
about me gave fresh elasticity to a mind not over- 
burdened with care, and made me forget not only 
the fatigue of walking, but also the consciousness 
of being alone. 

My first day's journey brought me at evening to 
a village, whose name I have forgotten, situated 
about eight leagues from Orleans. It is a small, 
obscure hamlet, not mentioned in the guide-book, 
and stands upon the precipitous banks of a deep 
ravine, through which a noisy brook leaps down to 
turn the ponderous wheel of a thatch-roofed mill. 
The village inn stands upon the highway ; but the 
village itself is not visible to the traveller as he 
passes. It is completely hidden in the lap of a 
wooded valley, and so embowered in trees that not 
a roof nor a chimney peeps out to betray its hiding- 
place. It is like the nest of a ground-swallow, which 
the passing footstep almost treads upon, and yet it 
is not seen. I passed by without suspecting that a 
village was near ; and the little inn had a look so 
uninviting that I did not even enter it. 

After proceeding a mile or two farther I per- 
ceived, upon my left, a village spire rising over the 
vineyards. Towards this I directed my footsteps ; 
but it seemed to recede as I advanced, and at last 
quite disappeared. It was evidently many miles 
distant ; and as the path I followed descended from 
the highway, it had gradually sunk beneath a swell 
of the vine-clad landscape. I now found myself in 
the midst of an extensive vineyard. It was just 



THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 173 

sunset ; and the last golden rays lingered on the 
rich and mellow scenery around me. The peas- 
antry were still busy at their task ; and the occas- 
ional bark of a dog, and the distant sound of an 
evening bell, gave fresh romance to the scene. The 
reality of many a daydream of childhood, of many 
a poetic revery of youth, was before me. I stood 
at sunset amid the luxuriant vineyards of France ! 

The first person I met was a poor old woman, a 
little bowed down with age, gathering grapes into 
a large basket. She was dressed like the poorest 
class of peasantry, and pursued her solitary task 
alone, heedless of the cheerful gossip and the merry 
laugh which came from a band of more youthful 
vintagers at a short distance from her. She was so 
intently engaged in her work, that she did not. per- 
ceive my approach until I bade her good evening. 
On hearing my voice, she looked up from her labor, 
and returned the salutation ; and, on my asking her 
if there were a tavern or a farm-house in the neigh- 
borhood where I could pass the night, she showed 
me the pathway through the vineyard that led to 
the village, and then added, with a look of curios- 
ity, — 

" You must be a stranger, sir, in these parts." 

" Yes ; my home is very far from here." 

"How far?" 

" More than a thousand leagues." 

The old woman looked incredulous. 

" I came from a distant land beyond the sea." 

" More than a thousand leagues ! " at length re- 



174 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

peated she ; " and why have you come so far from 
home ? " 

" To travel, — to see how you live in this coun- 
try." 

" Have you no relations in your own ? " 

" Yes ; I have both brothers and sisters, a father 
and " — 

" And a mother ? " 

" Thank Heaven, I have." 

" And did you leave her ? " 

Here the old woman gave me a piercing look of 
reproof; shook her head mournfully, and, with a 
deep sigh, as if some painful recollections had been 
awakened in her bosom, turned again to her sol- 
itary task. I felt rebuked ; for there is something 
almost prophetic in the admonitions of the old. 
The eye of age looks meekly into my heart ! the 
voice of age echoes mournfully through it ! the 
hoary head and palsied hand of age plead irresist- 
ibly for its sympathies ! I venerate old age ; and 
I love not the man who can look without emotion 
upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening 
begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shad- 
ows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the 
understanding ! 

I pursued the pathway which led towards the 
village, and the next person I encountered was an 
old man, stretched lazily beneath the vines upon a 
little strip of turf, at a point where four paths met, 
forming a crossway in the vineyard. He was clad 
in a coarse garb of gray, with a pair of long gai- 



THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 175 

ters or spatterdashes. Beside him lay a blue cloth 
cap, a staff, and an old weather-beaten knapsack. 
I saw at once that he was a foot-traveller like my- 
self, and therefore, without more ado, entered into 
conversation with him. From his language, and 
the peculiar manner in which he now and then 
wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand, as if 
in search of the mustache which was no longer 
there, I judged that he had been a soldier. In this 
opinion I was not mistaken. He had served under 
Napoleon, and had followed the imperial eagle 
across the Alps, and the Pyrenees, and the burning 
sands of Egypt. Like every vieille moustache, he 
spake with enthusiasm of the Little Corporal, and 
cursed the English, the Germans, the Spanish, and 
every other race on earth, except the Great Nation, 
— his own. 

" I like," said he, " after a long day's march, to 
lie down in this way upon the grass, and enjoy the 
cool of the evening. It reminds me of the bivouacs 
of other days, and of old friends who are now up 
there." 

Here he pointed with his finger to the sky. 

" They have reached the last etape before me, in 
the long march. But I shall go soon. "We shall 
all meet again at the last roll-call. Sacre nom 
de ! There 's a tear ! " 

He wiped it away with his sleeve. 

Here our colloquy was interrupted by the ap- 
proach of a group of vintagers, who were returning 
homeward from their labor. To this party I joined 



176 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

myself, and invited the old soldier to do the same ; 
but he shook his head. 

" I thank you ; my pathway lies in a different 
direction." 

" But there is no other village near, and the sun 
has already set." 

" No matter, I am used to sleeping on the ground. 
Good night." 

I left the old man to his meditations, and walked 
on in company with the vintagers. Following a well- 
trodden pathway through the vineyards, we soon 
descended the valley's slope, and I suddenly found 
myself in the bosom of one of those little hamlets 
from which the laborer rises to his toil as the sky- 
lark to his song. My companions wished me a 
good night, as each entered his own thatch-roofed 
cottage, and a little girl led me out to the very inn 
which an hour or two before I had disdained to 
enter. 

When I awoke in the morning a brilliant autum- 
nal sun was shining in at my window. The merry 
song of birds mingled sweetly with the sound of 
rustling leaves and the gurgle of the brook. The 
vintagers were going forth to their toil ; the wine- 
press was busy in the shade, and the clatter of the 
mill kept time to the miller's song. I loitered 
about the village with a feeling of calm delight. I 
was unwilling to leave the seclusion of this seques- 
tered hamlet ; but at length, with reluctant step, I 
took the cross-road through the vineyard, and in a 
moment the little village had sunk again, as if by 
enchantment, into the bosom of the earth. 



THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 177 

I breakfasted at the town of Mer ; and, leaving 
the high-road to Blois on the right, passed down to 
the banks of the Loire, through a long, broad 
avenue of poplars and sycamores. I crossed the 
river in a boat, and in the after part of the day I 
found myself before the high and massive walls of 
the chateau of Chambord. This chateau is one of 
the finest specimens of the ancient Gothic castle to 
be found in Europe. The little river Cosson fills 
its deep and ample moat, and above it the huge 
towers and heavy battlements rise in stern and sol- 
emn grandeur, moss-grown with age, and blackened 
by the storms of three centuries. Within, all is 
mournful and deserted. The grass has overgrown 
the pavement of the courtyard, and the rude sculpt- 
ure upon the walls is broken and defaced. From 
the courtyard I entered the central tower, and, as- 
cending the principal staircase, went out upon the 
battlements. I seemed to have stepped back into 
the precincts of the feudal ages ; and, as I passed 
along through echoing corridors, and vast, deserted 
halls, stripped of their furniture, and mouldering 
silently away, the distant past came back upon me ; 
and the times when the clang of arms, and the 
tramp of mail-clad men, and the sounds of music 
and revelry and wassail echoed along those high- 
vaulted and solitary chambers ! 

My third day's journey brought me to the an- 
cient city of Blois, the chief town of the depart- 
ment of Loire-et-Cher. This city is celebrated for 
the purity with which even the lower classes of its 
12 



178 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

inhabitants speak their native tongue. It rises 
precipitously from the northern bank of the Loire ; 
and many of its streets are so steep as to be almost 
impassable for carriages. On the brow of the hill, 
overlooking the roofs of the city, and commanding 
a fine view of the Loire and its noble bridge, and 
the surrounding country, sprinkled with cottages 
and chateaux, runs an ample terrace, planted with 
trees, and laid out as a public walk. The view 
from this terrace is one of the most beautiful in 
France. But w T hat most strikes the eye of the 
traveler at Blois is an old, though still unfinished, 
castle. Its huge parapets of hewn stone stand 
upon either side of the street ; but they have walled 
up the wide gateway, from which the colossal 
drawbridge was to have sprung high in air, con- 
necting together the main towers of the building, 
and the two hills upon whose slope its foundations 
stand. The aspect of this vast pile is gloomy and 
desolate. It seems as if the strong hand of the 
builder had been arrested in the midst of his task 
by the stronger hand of death ; and the unfinished 
fabric stands a lasting monument both of the power 
and weakness of man, — of his vast desires, his 
sanguine hopes, his ambitious purposes, — and of 
the unlooked-for conclusion, where all these desires, 
and hopes, and purposes are so often arrested. 
There is also at Blois another ancient chateau, to 
which some historic interest is attached, as being 
the scene of the massacre of the Duke of Guise. 1 
1 Blois was the place of meeting of the States General in 1588, 



THE VALLEY OF THE LOLRE. 179 

On the following day, I left Blois for Amboise ; 
and, after walking several leagues along the dusty- 
highway, crossed the river in a boat to the little 
village of Moines, which lies amid luxuriant vine- 
yards upon the southern bank of the Loire. From 
Moines to Amboise the road is truly delightful. 
The rich lowland scenery, by the margin of the 
river, is verdant even in October ; and occasionally 
the landscape is diversified with the picturesque 
cottages of the vintagers, cut in the rock along the 
roadside, and overhung by the thick foliage of the 
vines above them. 

At Amboise I took a cross-road, which led me to 
the romantic borders of the Cher and the chateau 
of Chenpnceau. This beautiful chateau, as well as 
that of Chambord, was built by the gay and mu- 
nificent Francis the First. One is a specimen of 
strong and massive architecture, — a dwelling for 
a warrior ; but the other is of a lighter and more 
graceful construction, and was destined for those 
soft languishments of passion with which the fas- 
cinating Diane de Poitiers had filled the bosom of 
that voluptuous monarch. 

The chateau of Chenonceau is built upon arches 
across the river Cher, whose waters are made to 
supply the deep moat at each extremity. There is 
a spacious courtyard in front, from which a draw- 
bridge conducts to the outer hall of the castle. 

and.it was on December 23d of that year that Henry III. caused 
the murder of the Duke of Guise, an event which grew out of the 
violence of the religious wars of France. 



180 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

There the armor of Francis the First still hangs 
upon the wall, — his shield, and helm, and lance, 
— as if the chivalrous prince had just exchanged 
them for the silken robes of the drawing-room. 
From this hall a door opens into a long gallery, 
extending the whole length of the building, across 
the Cher. The walls of the gallery are hung with 
the faded portraits of the long line of the descend- 
ants of Hugh Capet ; and the windows, looking up 
and down the stream, command a fine reach of 
pleasant river scenery. This is said to be the only 
chateau in France in which the ancient furniture 
of its original age is preserved. In one part of the 
building you are shown the bed-chamber of Diane 
de Poitiers, with its antique chairs covered with 
faded damask and embroidery, her bed, and a por- 
trait of the royal favorite hanging over the mantel- 
piece. In another you see the apartment of the 
infamous Catherine de' Medici ; a venerable arm- 
chair and an autograph letter of Henry the Fourth ; 
and in an old laboratory, among broken crucibles, 
and neckless retorts, and drums, and trumpets, and 
skins of wild beasts, and other ancient lumber, of 
various kinds, are to be seen the bed-posts of 
Francis the First ! Doubtless the naked walls and 
the vast solitary chambers of an old and desolate 
chateau inspire a feeling of greater solemnity and 
awe ; but when the antique furniture of the olden 
time remains, — the faded tapestry on the walls, 
and the arm-chair by the fireside, — the effect upon 
the mind is more magical and delightful. The old 



THE VALLEY OF THE LOIRE. 181 

inhabitants of the place, long gathered to their 
fathers, though living still in history, seem to have 
left their halls for the chase or the tournament ; 
and as the heavy door swings upon its reluctant 
hinge, one almost expects to see the gallant princes 
and courtly dames enter those halls again, and 
sweep in stately procession along the silent corri- 
dors. 

Rapt in such fancies as these, and gazing on the 
beauties of this noble edifice, and the soft scenery 
around it, I lingered, unwilling to depart, till the 
rays of the setting sun, streaming through the dusty 
windows, admonished me that the day was drawing 
rapidly to a close. I sallied forth from the south- 
ern gate of the chateau, and, crossing the broken 
drawbridge, pursued a pathway along the bank of 
the river, still gazing back upon those towering 
walls, now bathed in the rich glow of sunset, till a 
turn in the road and a clump of woodland at length 
shut them out from my sight. 

A short time after candle-lighting I reached the 
little tavern of the Boule d'Or, a few leagues from 
Tours, where I passed the night. The following 
morning was lowering and sad. A veil of mist 
hung over the landscape, and ever and anon a 
heavy shower burst from the overburdened clouds, 
that were driven by before a high and piercing 
wind. This unpropitious state of the weather de- 
tained me until noon, when a cabriolet for Tours 
drove up ; and taking a seat within it, I left the 
hostess of the Boule d'Or in the middle of a long 



182 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

story about a rich countess, who always alighted 
there when she passed that way. We drove lei- 
surely along through a beautiful country, till at 
length we came to the brow of a steep hill, which 
commands a fine view of the city of Tours and its 
delightful environs. But the scene was shrouded 
by the heavy drifting mist, through which I could 
trace but indistinctly the graceful sweep of the 
Loire, and the spires and roofs of the city far be- 
low me. 

The city of Tours and the delicious plain in 
which it lies have been too often described by other 
travellers to render a new description, from so list- 
less a pen as mine, either necessary or desirable. 
After a sojourn of two cloudy and melancholy days, 
I set out on my return to Paris, by the way of 
Vendome and Chartres. I stopped a few hours at 
the former place, to examine the ruins of a chateau 
built by Jeanne d'Albret, mother of Henry the 
Fourth. It stands upon the summit of a high and 
precipitous hill, and almost overhangs the town be- 
neath. The French Revolution has completed the 
ruin that time had already begun ; and nothing now 
remains but a broken and crumbling bastion, and 
here and there a solitary tower dropping slowly to 
decay. In one of these is the grave of Jeanne 
d'Albret. A marble entablature in the wall above 
contains the inscription, which is nearly effaced, 
though enough still remains to tell the curious trav- 
eller that there lies buried the mother of the " Bon 
Henri." To this is added a prayer that the repose 
of the dead may be respected. 



THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 183 

Here ended my foot excursion. The object of 
my journey was accomplished ; and, delighted with 
this short ramble through the valley of the Loire, 
I took my seat in the diligence for Paris, and on 
the following day was again swallowed up in the 
crowds of the metropolis, like a drop in the bosom 
of the sea. 



II. 
THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 

A Tissue de l'yver que le joly temps de primavere commence, et 
qu"on voit arbres verdoyer, fleurs espanouir, et qu'on oit les oisillons 
chanter en toute joie et doulceur, tant que les verts bocages reten- 
tissent de leurs sons et que cceurs tristes pensifs y dolens s'en esjouis- 
sent, s'emeuvent a delaisser deuil et toute tristesse, et se parforcent a 
valoir mieux. 

La Plaisante Histoire de Guerin de Monglave. 

Soft-breathing Spring ! how many pleasant 
thoughts, how many delightful recollections, does 
thy name awaken in the mind of a traveller ! 
Whether he has followed thee by the banks of the 
Loire or the Guadalquiver, or traced thy footsteps 
slowly climbing the sunny slope of Alp or Apen- 
nine, the thought of thee shall summon up sweet 
visions of the past, and thy golden sunshine and 
soft vapory atmosphere become a portion of his 
day-dreams and of him. Sweet images of thee, 
and scenes that have oft inspired the poet's song, 
shall mingle in his recollections of the past. The 



184 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

shooting of the tender leaf, — the sweetness and 
elasticity of the air, — the blue sky, — the fleet- 
drifting cloud, — and the flocks of wild fowl wheel- 
ing in long-drawn phalanx through the air, and 
screaming from their dizzy height, — all these shall 
pass like a dream before his imagination, 

" And gently o'er his memory come at times 
A glimpse of joys that had their birth in thee, 
Like a brief strain of some forgotten tune." 

It was at the opening of this delightful season of 
the year that I passed through the South of France, 
and took the road of St. Jean de Luz for the Span- 
ish frontier. I left Bordeaux amid all the noise 
and gayety of the last scene of Carnival. The 
streets and public walks of the city were full of 
merry groups in masks, — at every corner crowds 
were listening to the discordant music of the 
wandering ballad-singer ; and grotesque figures, 
mounted on high stilts, and dressed in the garb of 
the peasants of the Landes of Gascony, were stalk- 
ing up and down like so many long-legged cranes ; 
others were amusing themselves with the tricks 
and grimaces of little monkeys, disguised like little 
men, bowing to the ladies, and figuring away in red 
coats and ruffles ; and here and there a band of 
chimney-sweeps were staring in stupid wonder at 
the miracles of a showman's box. In a word, all 
was so full of mirth and merrimake, that even beg- 
gary seemed to have forgotten that it was wretched, 
and gloried in the ragged masquerade of one poor 
holiday. 



THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 185 

To this scene of noise and gayety succeeded the 
silence and solitude of the Landes of Gascony. 
The road from Bordeaux to Bayonne winds along 
through immense pine forests and sandy plains, 
spotted here and there with a dingy little hovel, 
and the silence is interrupted only by the dismal 
hollow roar of the wind among the melancholy and 
majestic pines. Occasionally, however, the way is 
enlivened by a market-town or a straggling village ; 
and I still recollect the feelings of delight which I 
experienced, when, just after sunset, we passed 
through the romantic town of Roquefort, built upon 
the sides of the green valley of the Douze, which 
has scooped out a verdant hollow for it to nestle in, 
amid those barren tracts of sand. 

On leaving Bayonne the scene assumes a char- 
acter of greater beauty and sublimity. To the vast 
forests of the Landes of Gascony succeeds a scene 
of picturesque beauty, delightful to the traveller's 
eye. Before him rise the snowy Pyrenees, — a 
long line of undulating hills, — 

" Bounded afar by peak aspiring bold, 
Like giant capped with helm of burnished gold." 

To the left, as far as the eye can reach, stretch the 
delicious valleys of the Nive and Adour ; and to 
the right the sea flashes along the pebbly margin 
of its silver beach, forming a thousand little bays 
and inlets, or comes tumbling in among the cliffs 
of a rock-bound coast, and beats against its massive 
barriers with a distant, hollow, continual roar. 
Should these pages meet the eye of any solitary 



186 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

traveller who is journeying into Spain by the road 
I here speak of, I would advise him to travel from 
Bayonne to St. Jean de Luz on horseback. At the 
gate of Bayonne he will find a steed ready capari- 
soned for him, with a dark-eyed Basque girl for his 
companion and guide, who is to sit beside him upon 
the same horse. This style of travelling is, I be- 
lieve, peculiar to the Basque provinces ; at all 
events, I have seen it nowhere else. The saddle 
is constructed with a large frame-work extending 
on each side, and covered with cushions ; and the 
traveller and his guide, being placed on the opposite 
extremities, serve as a balance to each other. "We 
overtook many travellers mounted in this way, and 
I could not help thinking it a mode of travelling 
far preferable to being cooped up in a 'diligence. 
The Basque girls are generally beautiful ; and there 
was one of these merry guides we met upon the 
road to Bidart whose image haunts me still. She 
had large and expressive black eyes, teeth like 
pearls, a rich and sunburnt complexion, and hair 
of a glossy blackness, parted on the forehead, and 
falling down behind in a large braid, so long as 
almost to touch the ground with the little ribbon 
that confined it at the end. She wore the common 
dress of the peasantry of the South of France, and 
a large gypsy straw hat was thrown back over her 
shoulder, and tied by a ribbon about her neck. 
There was hardly a dusty traveller in the coach 
who did not envy her companion the seat he occu- 
pied beside her. 



THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 187 

Just at nightfall we entered the town of St. Jean 
ae Luz, and dashed down its narrow streets at full 
gallop. The little madcap postilion cracked his 
knotted whip incessantly, and the sound echoed 
back from the high dingy walls like the report of 
a pistol. The coach-wheels nearly touched the 
houses on each side of us ; the idlers in the street 
jumped right and left to save themselves ; window- 
shutters flew open in all directions; a thousand 
heads popped out from cellar and upper story ; 
" Sacr-r-re matin ! " shouted the postilion, — and 
we rattled on like an earthquake. 

St. Jean de Luz is a smoky little fishing town, 
situated on the low grounds at the mouth of the 
Nivelle, and a bridge connects it with the faubourg 
of Sibourne, which stands on the opposite bank of 
the river. I had no time, however, to note the 
peculiarities of the place, for I was whirled out of 
it with the same speed and confusion with which I 
had been whirled in, and I can only recollect the 
sweep of the road across the Nivelle, — the church 
of Sibourne by the water's edge, — the narrow 
streets, — the smoky-looking houses with red win- 
dow-shutters, and "a very ancient and fish-like 
smell." 

I passed by moonlight the little river Bidasoa, 
which forms the boundary between France and 
Spain ; and when the morning broke, found myself 
far up among the mountains of San Salvador, the 
most westerly links of the great Pyrenean chain. 
The mountains around me were neither rugged nor 



188 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

precipitous, but they rose one above another in a 
long, majestic swell, and the trace of the plough- 
share was occasionally visible to their summits. 
They seemed entirely destitute of trees ; and as 
the season of vegetation had not yet commenced, 
their huge outlines lay black, and barren, and deso- 
late against the sky. But it was a glorious morn- 
ing, and the sun rose up into a cloudless heaven, 
and poured a flood of gorgeous splendor over the 
mountain landscape, as if proud of the realm he 
shone upon. The scene was enlivened by the 
dashing of a swollen mountain-brook, whose course 
we followed for miles down the valley, as it leaped 
onward to its journey's end, now breaking into a 
white cascade, and now foaming and chafing be- 
neath a rustic bridge. Now and then we drove 
through a dilapidated town, with a group of idlers 
at every corner, wrapped in tattered brown cloaks, 
and smoking their little paper cigars in the sun ; 
then would succeed a desolate tract of country, 
cheered only by the tinkle of a mule-bell, or the 
song of a muleteer ; then we would meet a solitary 
traveller mounted on horseback, and wrapped in 
the ample folds of his cloak, with a gun hanging 
at the pommel of his saddle. Occasionally, too, 
among the bleak, inhospitable hills, we passed a 
rude little chapel, with a cluster of ruined cottages 
around it; and whenever our carriage stopped at 
the relay, or loitered slowly up the hillside, a crowd 
of children would gather around us, with little im- 
ages and crucifixes for sale, curiously ornamented 
with ribbons and bits of tawdry finery. 



THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 189 

A day's journey from the frontier brought us to 
Vitoria, where the diligence stopped for the night. 
I spent the scanty remnant of daylight in rambling 
about the streets of the city, with no other guide 
than the whim of the moment. Now I plunged 
down a dark and narrow alley x now emerged into 
a wide street or a spacious market-place, and now 
aroused the drowsy echoes of a church or cloister 
with the sound of my intruding footsteps. But de- 
scriptions of churches and public squares are dull 
and tedious matters for those readers who are in 
search of amusement, and not of instruction ; and 
if any one has accompanied me thus far on my 
fatiguing journey towards the Spanish capital, I 
will readily excuse him from the toil of an evening 
ramble through the streets of Vitoria. 

On the following morning we left the town, long 
before daybreak, and during our forenoon's journey 
the postilion drew up at an inn, on the southern 
slope of the Sierra de San Lorenzo, in the province 
of Old Castile. The house was an old, dilapidated 
tenement, built of rough stone, and coarsely plas- 
tered upon the outside. The tiled roof had long 
been the sport of wind and rain, the motley coat of 
plaster was broken and time-worn, and the whole 
building sadly out of repair ; though the fanciful 
mouldings under the eaves, and the curiously 
carved wood-work that supported the little balcony 
over the principal entrance, spoke of better days 
gone by. The whole building reminded me of a 
dilapidated Spanish Don, down at the heel and out 



190 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

at elbows, but with here and there a remnant of 
former magnificence peeping through the loopholes 
of his tattered cloak. 

A wide gateway ushered the traveller into the 
interior of the building, and conducted him to a 
low -roofed apartment, paved with round stones, 
and serving both as a courtyard and a stable. It 
seemed to be a neutral ground for man and beast, 
■ — a little republic, where horse and rider had com- 
mon privileges, and mule and muleteer lay cheek 
by jowl. In one corner a poor jackass was pa- 
tiently devouring a bundle of musty straw, — in 
another, its master lay sound asleep, with his sad- 
dle-cloth for a pillow ; here a group of muleteers 
were quarrelling over a pack of dirty cards, — and 
there the village barber, with a self-important air, 
stood laving the Alcalde's chin from the helmet of 
Mambrino. On the wall, a little taper glimmered 
feebly before an image of St. Anthony; directly 
opposite these a leathern wine-bottle hung by the 
neck from a pair of ox-horns ; and the pavement 
below was covered with a curious medley of boxes, 
and bags, and cloaks, and pack-saddles, and sacks 
of grain, and skins of wine, and all kinds of lum- 
ber. 

A small door upon the right led us into ths inn- 
kitchen. It was a room about ten feet square, and 
literally all chimney ; for the hearth was in the 
centre of the floor, and the walls sloped upward in 
the form of a long, narrow pyramid, with an open- 
ing at the top for the escape of the smoke. Quite 



THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 191 

round this little room ran a row of benches, upon 
which sat one or two grave personages smoking 
paper cigars. Upon the hearth blazed a handful of 
fagots, whose bright flame danced merrily among a 
motley congregation of pots and kettles, and a long 
wreath of smoke wound lazily up through the huge 
tunnel of the roof above. The walls were black 
with soot, and ornamented with sundry legs of 
bacon and festoons of sausages ; and as there were 
no windows in this dingy abode, the only light 
which cheered the darkness within, came flickering 
from the fire upon the hearth, and the smoky sun- 
beams that peeped down the long-necked chimney. 
I had not been long seated by the fire, when the 
tinkling of mule-bells, the clatter of hoofs, and the 
hoarse voice of a muleteer in the outer apartment, 
announced the arrival of new guests. A few mo- 
ments afterward the kitchen-door opened, and a 
person entered, whose appearance strongly arrested 
my attention. It was a tall, athletic figure, with 
the majestic carriage of a grandee, and a dark, sun- 
burnt countenance, that indicated an age of about 
fifty years. His dress was singular, and such as I 
had not before seen. He wore a round hat with 
wide, flapping brim, from beneath which his long, 
black hair hung in curls upon his shoulders ; a 
leather jerkin, with cloth sleeves, descended to his 
hips ; around his waist was closely buckled a leather 
belt, with a car touch-box on one side ; a pair of 
loose trousers of black serge hung in ample folds to 
the knees, around which they were closely gathered 



192 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

by embroidered garters of blue silk ; and black 
broadcloth leggins, buttoned close to the calves, 
and strapped over a pair of brown leather shoes, 
completed the singular dress of the stranger. He 
doffed his hat as he entered, and, saluting the com- 
pany with a " Dios guarde a Ustedes, caballeros " 
(God guard you, Gentlemen), took a seat by the 
fire, and entered into conversation with those around 
him. 

As my curiosity was not a little excited by the 
peculiar dress of this person, I inquired of a travel- 
ling companion, who sat at my elbow, who and 
what this new-comer was. From him I learned 
that he was a muleteer of the Maragateria, — a 
name given to a cluster of small towns which lie in 
the mountainous country between Astorga and Vil- 
lafranca, in the western corner of the kingdom of 
Leon. 

" Nearly every province in Spain/' said he, " has 
its peculiar costume, as you will, see, when you 
have advanced farther into our country. For in- 
stance, the Catalonians wear crimson caps, hanging 
down upon the shoulder like a sack ; wide panta- 
loons of green velvet, long enough in the waistband 
to cover the whole breast ; and a little strip of a 
jacket, made of the same material, and so short as 
to bring the pocket directly under the armpit. The 
Valencians, on the contrary, go almost naked: a 
linen shirt, white linen trousers, reaching no lower 
than the knees, and a pair of coarse leather sandals 
complete their simple garb ; it is only in mid-winter 



THE JOURNEY INTO SPAIN. 193 

that they indulge in the luxury of a jacket. The 
most beautiful and expensive costume, however, is 
that of Andalusia ; it consists of a velvet jacket, 
faced with rich and various-colored embroidery, and 
covered with tassels and silken cord ; a waistcoat 
of some gay color ; a silken handkerchief round 
the neck, and a crimson sash round the waist ; 
breeches that button down each side ; gaiters and 
shoes of white leather ; and a handkerchief of 
bright-colored silk wound about the head like a 
turban, and surmounted by a velvet cap or a little 
round hat, with a wide band, and an abundance of 
silken loops and tassels. The Old Castilians are 
more grave in their attire : they wear a leather 
breastplate instead of a jacket, breeches and leg- 
gins, and a montera cap. This fellow is a Ma- 
ragato ; and in the villages of the Maragateria the 
costume varies a little from the rest of Leon and 
Castile." 

" If he is indeed a Maragato," said I, jestingly, 
" who knows but he may be a descendant of the 
muleteer who behaved so naughtily at Cacabelos, 
as related in the second chapter of the veracious 
history of Gil Bias de Santillana ? " 

" | Quien sahe t" 1 was the reply. " Notwith- 
standing the pride which, even the meanest Castilian 
feels in counting over a long line of good-for-noth- 
ing ancestors, the science of genealogy has become 
of late a very intricate study in Spain." 

1 In Spanish use an inverted interrogation mark also pre- 
cedes a question. 

13 



194 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Here our conversation was cut short by the May- 
oral of the diligence, who came to tell us that mules 
were waiting; and before many hours -had elapsed 
we were scrambling through the square of the an- 
cient city of Burgos. On the morrow we crossed 
the river Duero and the Guadarrama Mountains, 
and early in the afternoon entered the " Heroica 
Villa," of Madrid, by the Puerta de Fuencarral. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE circumstances attending the production of 
most of Whittier's prose writings have not 
been favorable to sustained composition. Much of 
his work has been in the form of contributions to 
journals which he has edited, and the two volumes 
which now constitute his collected prose writings 
have been gathered from these occasional papers, 
the only extended work being in Leaves from Mar- 
garet Smith's Journal, an imitative work, suggested, 
no doubt, by the successful Lady Willoughhfs Diary. 
In that work he has given a picture of the New 
England of the last quarter of the seventeenth cent- 
ury, when a heroic life had become somewhat hard- 
ened by prosperity and authority into intolerance, 
and the superstitious alloy of religious life had 
become prominent by the decline of a living faith. 
Himself of Quaker descent and belief, he has touched 
kindly but firmly the changing life of the day which 
culminated in the witchcraft delusion and displayed 
itself in the persecution of the Quakers. Yet the 
best life of the day, whether Puritan or Quaker, is 
reproduced in the book, and the changing elements 



196 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

of a transition period are all clearly presented. The 
studied and imitative form of the book prevents it 
from enjoying a wide popularity, but the genuine- 
ness of the spirit, and the graceful style in which 
the Puritan maiden's diary is preserved render it 
one of the best mediums for approaching a difficult 
period of New England history. The reader will 
find it interesting to compare with it the historical 
record of Robert Pike, presented in The New Puri- 
tan^ a sketch of the character by James S. Pike. 

The subjects which are prominent in Whittier's 
verse appear also in his prose. The superstitions of 
New England were treated of by him in a small vol- 
ume which has not been kept in print, The Super- 
naturalism of New England ; the heroic lives of men 
and women content to be true to duty and God, and 
gaining their distinction often by their patience under 
suffering, are reproduced in a series of papers enti- 
tled Old Portraits and Modern Sketches ; the homely 
beauty of a life of toil is recorded in the papers 
which make up the little volume, The Stranger in 
Lowell, which was published in 1845 and has since 
been merged, in part, in the second volume of his 
prose works, which bears the general title of Liter- 
ary Recreations and Miscellanies. He was engaged 
at this time in the conduct of a paper in Lowell, and 
the life about him suggested occasional essays upon 

. ! The New Puritan. New ^England two hundred 3-ears ago. 
Some account of the life of Robert Pike, the Puritan who defended 
the Quakers, resisted clerical domination, and opposed the witch- 
craft persecution. By James S. Pike. New York, Harper and 
Brothers, 1879. 



INTRODUCTION. 197 

topics free from political feeling. Two of the pa- 
pers then published are here given, and they serve 
in part to illustrate his interest in life and history, 
for an unfailing attribute of his writing, whether in 
prose or verse, has been his sympathy with homely 
forms of life about him ; and the interest which he 
has shown in that part of history which deals with 
the relations of the Indian to the white man may be 
referred in part to his traditional Quaker principle, 
in part to his instinctive championship of the weak 
and wronged. In his prefatory note to Literary Rec- 
reations and Miscellanies he speaks lightly of his 
work, which, as there given, was rather a relief from 
severer tasks than itself serious and deliberate, but 
the spirit which pervades all his writings, whether 
in prose or in verse, is the same, and the recreations 
of a man of serious and simple purpose rarely fail 
to disclose his character and temper. The absence 
of mere moods in Whittier's writings is a singular 
testimony to the elevation of his common thought, 
and the simplicity of his aims in literature appears 
quite as significantly in his desultory prose as in his 
more deliberate poetry. At no time does the reader 
seem to pass out of the presence of an earnest man 
into that of a professional litterateur ; the careless- 
ness of literary fame which Whittier has shown 
may be referred to the sincerity of his devotion to 
that which literature effects, and he has written 
and sung out of a heart very much in earnest to 
offer some help, or out of the pleasure of his work. 
The careful student of his writings will always value 
most the integrity of his life. 



I. 

YANKEE GYPSIES. 

" Here 's to budgets, packs, and wallets ; 
Here 's to all the wandering train." 

Burns. 1 

I confess it, I am keenly sensitive to " skyey 
influences." 2 I profess no indifference to the move- 
ments of that capricious old gentleman known as 
the clerk of the weather. I cannot conceal my in- 
terest in the behavior of that patriarchal bird whose 
wooden similitude gyrates on the church spire. 
Winter proper is well enough. Let the thermom- 
eter go to zero if it will ; so much the better, if 
thereby the very winds are frozen and unable to 
flap their stiff wings. Sounds of bells in the keen 
air, clear, musical, heart-inspiring ; quick tripping of 
fair moccasined feet on glittering ice pavements ; 
bright eyes glancing above the uplifted muff like a 
sultana's behind the folds of her yashmak ; 3 school- 
boys coasting down street like mad Greenlanders ; 

1 From the closing air in The Jolly Beggars, a cantata. 

2 "A breath thou art 
Servile to all the skyey influences, 

That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, 
Hourly afflict." 

Shakspere: Measure for Measure, act III. scene 1. 
* " She turns and turns again, and carefully glances around 



YANKEE GYPSIES. 199 

the cold brilliance of oblique sunbeams flashing 
back from wide surfaces of glittering snow, or blaz- 
ing upon ice jewelry of tree and roof. There is 
nothing in all this to complain of. A storm of 
summer has its redeeming sublimities, — its slow, 
upheaving mountains of cloud glooming in the west- 
ern horizon like new-created volcanoes, veined with 
fire, shattered by exploding thunders. Even the 
wild gales of the equinox have their varieties, — 
sounds of wind-shaken woods and waters, creak and 
clatter of sign and casement, hurricane puffs, and 
down-rushing rain-spouts. But this dull, dark au- 
tumn day of thaw and rain, when the very clouds 
seem too spiritless and languid to storm outright 
or take themselves out of the way of fair weather ; 
wet beneath and above, reminding one of that ray- 
less atmosphere of Dante's Third Circle, where the 
infernal Priessnitz * administers his hydropathic tor- 
ment, — 

"A heavy, cursed, and relentless drench, — 
The land it soaks is putrid ; " 

or rather, as everything animate and inanimate, is 

her on all sides, to see that she is safe from the eyes of Mussul- 
mans, and then suddenly withdrawing the yashmak she shines 
upon your heart and soul with all the pomp and might of her 
beauty." Kinglake's Eothen, chap. iii. In a note to Yashmak 
Kinglake explains that it is not a mere semi-transparent veil, 
but thoroughly conceals all the features except the eyes : it is 
withdrawn by being pulled down. 

1 Vincenz Priessnitz was the originator of the water-cure. 
After experimenting upon himself and his neighbors he took up 
the profession of hydropathy and established baths at his native 
place, Grafenberg in Silesia, in 1829. He died in 1851. 



200 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

seething in warm mist, suggesting the idea that 
Nature, grown old and rheumatic, is trying the 
efficacy of a Thomsonian steam -box 1 on a grand 
scale ; no sounds save the heavy plash of muddy 
feet on the pavements ; the monotonous, melan- 
choly drip from trees and roofs ; the distressful 
gurgling of water-ducts, swallowing the dirty amal- 
gam of the gutters ; a dim, leaden-colored horizon 
of only a few yards in diameter, shutting down 
about one, beyond which nothing is visible save in 
faint line or dark projection ; the ghost of a church 
spire or the eidolon of a chimney-pot. He who 
can extract pleasurable emotions from the alembic 
of such a day has a trick of alchemy with which I 
am wholly unacquainted. 

Hark ! a rap at my door. Welcome anybody 
just now. One gains nothing by attempting to 
shut out the sprites of the weather. They come 
in at the keyhole ; they peer through the drip- 
ping panes ; they insinuate themselves through the 
crevices of the casement, or plump down chimney 
astride of the rain-drops. 

I rise and throw open the door. A tall, sham- 
bling, loose-jointed figure ; a pinched, shrewd face, 
sun-brown and wind-dried ; small, quick-winking 
black eyes. There he stands, the water dripping 
from his pulpy hat and ragged elbows. 

1 Dr. Samuel Thomson, a New Hampshire physician, acU 
vocated the use of the steam hath as a restorer of the system 
when diseased. He died in 1843 and left behind an autobi- 
ography {Life and Medical Discoveries) which contains a record 
of the persecutions he underwent. 



YANKEE GYPSIES. 201 

I speak to him ; but he returns no answer. With 
a dumb show of misery, quite touching, he hands 
me a soiled piece of parchment, whereon I read 
what purports to be a melancholy account of ship- 
wreck and disaster, to the particular detriment, loss, 
and damnification of one Pietro Frugoni, who is, in 
consequence, sorely in want of the alms of all char- 
itable Christian persons, and who is, in short, the 
bearer of this veracious document, duly certified 
and indorsed by an Italian consul in one of our 
Atlantic cities, of a high-sounding, but to Yankee 
organs unpronounceable, name. 

Here commences a struggle. Every man, the 
Mahometans tell us, has two attendant angels, — 
the good one on his right shoulder, the bad on his 
left. " Give," says Benevolence, as with some 
difficulty I fish up a small coin from the depths of 
my pocket. "Not a cent," says selfish Prudence; 
and I drop it from my fingers. " Think," says the 
good angel, " of the poor stranger in a strange land, 
just escaped from the terrors of the sea-storm, in 
which his little property has perished, thrown half- 
naked and helpless on our shores, ignorant of our 
language, and unable to find employment suited to 
his capacity." " A vile impostor ! " replies the 
left-hand sentinel. " His paper, purchased from 
one of those ready-writers in New York who man- 
ufacture beggar-credentials at the low price of one 
dollar per copy, with earthquakes, fires, or ship- 
wrecks, to suit customers." 

Amidst this confusion of tongues I take another 



202 JOHN GREENLEAF WEITTIER. 

survey of my visitant. Ha ! a light dawns upon 
me. That shrewd, old face, with its sharp, winking 
eyes, is no stranger to me. Pietro Frugoni, I have 
seen thee before. Si, signor, that face of thine has 
looked at me over a dirty white neckcloth, with the 
corners of that cunning mouth drawn downwards, 
and those small eyes turned up in sanctimonious 
gravity, while thou wast offering to a crowd of half- 
grown boys an extemporaneous exhortation in the 
capacity of a travelling preacher. Have I not seen 
it peering out from under a blanket, as that of a 
poor Penobscot Indian, who had lost the use of his 
hands while trapping on the Madawaska? Is it 
not the face of the forlorn father of six small chil- 
dren, whom the " marcury doctors" had " pisened " 
and crippled? Did it not belong to that down-East 
unfortunate who had been out to the " Genesee 
country " * and got the " f evern-nager," and whose 
hand shook so pitifully when held out to receive 
my poor gift ? The same, under all disguises, — 
Stephen Leathers, of Barrington, — him, and none 
other ! Let me conjure him into his own like- 
ness : — 

" Well, Stephen, what news from old Barring- 
ton ? " 

l The Genesee Country is the name by which the western 
part of New York, bordering on Lakes Ontario and Erie, was 
known, when, at the close of the last and beginning of this 
century, it was to people on the Atlantic coast the Great West. 
In 1792 communication was opened by a road with the Penn- 
sylvania settlements, but the early settlers were almost all from 
New England. 



YANKEE GYPSIES. 203 

" Oh, well, I thought I knew ye," he answers, not 
the least disconcerted. " How do you do? and 
how 's your folks ? All well, I hope. I took this 
'ere paper, you see, to help a poor furriner, who 
could n't make himself understood any more than 
a wild goose. I thought I'd just start him for'ard 
a little. It seemed a marcy to do it." 

Well and shiftily answered, thou ragged Proteus. 
One cannot be angry with such a fellow. I will 
just inquire into the present state of his Gospel 
mission and about the condition of his tribe on the 
Penobscot ; and it may be not amiss to congratu- 
late him on the success of the steam-doctors in 
sweating the " pisen " of the regular faculty out of 
him. But he evidently has no wish to enter into 
idle conversation. Intent upon his benevolent er- 
rand he is already clattering clown stairs. Invol- 
untarily I glance out of the window just in season 
to catch a single glimpse of him ere he is swal- 
lowed up in the mist. 

He has gone ; and, knave as he is, I can hardly 
help exclaiming, " Luck go with him ! " He has 
broken in upon the sombre train of my thoughts 
and called up before me pleasant and grateful recol- 
lections. The old farm-house nestling in its valley ; 
hills stretching off to the south and green meadows 
to the east ; the small stream which came noisily 
down its ravine, washing the old garden-wall and 
softly lapping on fallen stones and mossy roots of 
beeches and hemlocks ; the tall sentinel poplars at 
the gateway ; the oak-forest, sweeping unbroken to 



204 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

the northern horizon ; the grass-grown carriage-path, 
with its rude and crazy bridge, — the dear old land- 
scape of the boyhood lies outstretched before me 
like a daguerreotype from that picture within which 
I have borne with me in all my wanderings. I am 
a boy again, once more conscious of the feeling, 
half terror, half exultation, with which I used to an- 
nounce the approach of this very vagabond and his 
<; kindred after the flesh." 

The advent of wandering beggars, or " old strag- 
glers," as we were wont to call them, was an event 
of no ordinary interest in the generally monotonous 
quietude of our farm-life. Many of them were well 
known ; they had their periodical revolutions and 
transits ; we would calculate them like eclipses or 
new moons. Some were sturdy knaves, fat and 
saucy ; and, whenever they ascertained that the 
" men folks " were absent, would order provisions 
and cider like men who expected to pay for them, 
seating themselves at the hearth or table with the 
air of Falstaff, — " Shall I not take mine ease in 
mine own inn ? " Others, poor, pale, patient, like 
Sterne's monk, 1 came creeping up to the door, hat 
in hand, standing there in their gray wretchedness 
with a look of heartbreak and forlornness which 
was never without its effect on our juvenile sensi- 
bilities. At times, however, we experienced a slight 
revulsion of feeling when even these humblest chil- 
dren of sorrow somewhat petulantly rejected our 

1 Whom he met at Calais, as described in his Sentimental 
Journey. 



YANKEE GYPSIES. 205 

proffered bread and cheese, and demanded instead 
a glass of cider. Whatever the temperance society 
might in such cases have done, it was not in our 
hearts to refuse the poor creatures a draught of 
their favorite beverage ; and was n't it a satisfaction 
to see their sad, melancholy faces light up as we 
handed them the full pitcher, and, on receiving it 
back empty from their brown, wrinkled hands, to 
hear them, half breathless from their long, delicious 
draught, thanking us for the favor, as " dear, good 
children " ! Not unfrequently these wandering tests 
of our benevolence made their appearance in inter- 
esting groups of man, woman, and child, pictu- 
resque in their squalidness, and manifesting a 
maudlin affection which would have done honor 
to the revellers at Poosie-Nansie's, immortal in the 
cantata of Burns. 1 I remember some who were 
evidently the victims of monomania, — haunted 
and hunted by some dark thought, — possessed by 
a fixed idea. One, a black-eyed, wild-haired woman, 
with a whole tragedy of sin, shame, and suffering 
written in her countenance, used often to visit us, 
warm herself by our winter fire, and supply herself 
with a stock of cakes and cold meat ; but was never 

1 The cantata is The Jolly Beggars, from which the motto, 
heading this sketch was taken. Poosie-Nansle was the keeper 
of a tavern in Mauchline, which was the favorite resort of the 
lame sailors, maimed soldiers, travelling halhid-singers, and all 
such loose companions as hang ahout the skirts of society. The 
cantata has for its theme the rivalry of a "pigmy scraper with 
his fiddle " and a strolling tinker for a beggar woman : hence 
the maudlin affection. 



206 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

known to answer a question or to ask one. She 
never smiled ; the cold, stony look of her eye never 
changed ; a silent, impassive face, frozen rigid by 
some great wrong or sin. We used to look with 
awe upon the "still woman," and think of the de- 
moniac of Scripture who had a " dumb spirit." 

One — I think I see him now, grim, gaunt, and 
ghastly, working his slow way up to our door — 
used to gather herbs by the wayside and call him- 
self doctor. He was bearded like a he-goat, and 
used to counterfeit lameness ; yet, when he sup- 
posed himself alone, would travel on lustily, as if 
walking for a wager. At length, as if in punish- 
ment of his deceit, he met with an accident in his 
rambles and became lame in earnest, hobbling ever 
after with difficulty on his gnarled crutches. An- 
other used to go stooping, like Bunyan's pilgrim, 
under a pack made of an old bed-sacking, stuffed 
out into most plethoric dimensions, tottering on a 
pair of small, meagre legs, and peering out with 
his wild, hairy face from under his burden like a 
big-bodied spider. That " man with the pack " 
always inspired me with awe and reverence. Huge, 
almost sublime, in' its tense rotundity, the father of 
all packs, never laid aside and never opened, what 
might there not be within it? With what flesh- 
creeping curiosity I used to walk round about it at 
a safe distance, half expecting to see its striped 
covering stirred by the motions of a mysterious life, 
or that some evil monster would leap out of it, like 
robbers from Ali Baba's jars or armed men from 
the Trojan horss ! 



YANKEE GYPSIES. 207 

There was another class of peripatetic philoso- 
phers — half pedler, half mendicant — who were 
in the habit of visiting us. One, we recollect, a 
lame, unshaven, sinister-eyed, unwholesome fellow, 
with his basket of old newspapers and pamphlets, 
and his tattered blue umbrella, serving; rather as a 
walking-staff than as a protection from the rain. 
He told us on one occasion, in answer to our in- 
quiring into the cause of his lameness, that when a 
young man he was employed on the farm of the 
chief magistrate of a neighboring State ; where, as 
his ill luck would have it, the governor's handsome 
daughter fell in love with him. He was caught one 
day in the young lady's room by her father ; where- 
upon the irascible old gentleman pitched him un- 
ceremoniously out of the window, laming him for 
life, on a brick pavement below, like Vulcan on 
the rocks of Lemnos. 1 As for the lady, he assured 
us " she took on dreadfully about it." " Did she 
die ? " we inquired, anxiously. There was a cun- 
ning twinkle in the old rogue's eye as he responded, 
" Well, no, she did n't. She got married." 

Twice a year, usually in the spring and autumn, 
we were honored with a call from Jonathan Plum- 
mer, maker of verses, pedler and poet, physician 
and parson, — a Yankee troubadour, — first and 
last minstrel of the valley of the Merrimac, encir- 
cled, to my wondering young eyes, with the very 
nimbus of immortality. He brought with him pins, 

1 It was upon the Isle of Lemnos that Vulcan was flung by 
Jupiter, according to the myth, for attempting to aid his mother 
Juno. 



208 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

needles, tape, and cotton-thread for my mother ; 
jack-kuives, razors, and soap for my father; and 
verses of his own composing, coarsely printed and 
illustrated with rude wood-cuts, for the delectation 
of the younger branches of the family. No love- 
sick youth could drown himself, no deserted maiden 
bewail the moon, no rogue mount the gallows, with- 
out fitting memorial in Plummer's verses. Earth- 
quakes, fires, fevers, and shipwrecks he regarded as 
personal favors from Providence, furnishing the 
raw material of song and ballad. Welcome to us 
in our country seclusion, as Autolycus to the clown 
in " Winter's Tale," 1 we listened with infinite sat- 
isfaction to his reading of his own verses, or to his 
ready improvisation upon some domestic incident 
or topic suggested by his auditors. When once 
fairly over the difficulties at the outset of a new 
subject his rhymes flowed freely, " as if he had 
eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to his tunes." 
His productions answered, as nearly as I can re- 
member, to Shakspere's description of a proper 
ballad, — " doleful matter merrily set down, or a 
very pleasant theme sung lamentably." He was 
scrupulously conscientious, devout, inclined to theo- 
logical disquisitions, and withal mighty in Scripture. 
He was thoroughly independent ; flattered nobody, 
cared for nobody, trusted nobody. When invited 

1 "He could never come better," says the clown in Shak- 
spere's The Winter's Tale, when Autolycus, the pedler, is an- 
nounced ; " he shall come in. I love a ballad but even too 
well, if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant 
thing indeed and sung lamentably." Act IV. scene 4. 



YANKEE GYPSIES. 209 

to sit down at our dinner-table he invariably took 
the precaution to place his basket of valuables be- 
tween his legs for safe keeping. " Never mind thy 
basket, Jonathan," said my father ; " we shan't steal 
thy verses." " I 'm not sure of that," returned the 
suspicious guest. " It is written, s Trust ye not in 
any brother.' " 

Thou, too, O Parson B., — with thy pale stu- 
dent's brow and rubicund nose, with thy rusty and 
tattered black coat overswept by white, flowing 
locks, with thy professional white neckcloth scru- 
pulously preserved when even a shirt to thy back 
was problematical, — art by no means to be over- 
looked in the muster-roll of vagrant gentlemen 
possessing the entree of our farm-house. Well do 
we remember with what grave and dignified cour- 
tesy he used to step over its threshold, saluting its 
inmates with the same air of gracious condescension 
and patronage with which in better days he had 
delighted the hearts of his parishioners. Poor old 
man ! He had once been the admired and almost 
worshipped minister of the largest church in the 
town where he afterwards found support in the 
winter season, as a pauper. He had early fallen 
into intemperate habits ; and at the age of three- 
score and ten, when I remember him, he was only 
sober when he lacked the means of being other- 
wise. Drunk or sober, however, he never alto- 
gether forgot the proprieties of his profession ; he 
was always grave, decorous, and gentlemanly ; he 
held fast the form of sound words, and the weak- 
14 



210 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

ness of the flesh abated nothing of the rigor of his 
stringent theology. He had been a favorite pupil 
of the learned and astute Emmons, 1 and was to the 
last a sturdy defender of the peculiar dogmas of his 
school. The last time we saw him he was holding 
a meeting in our district school-house, with a vaga- 
bond pedler for deacon and travelling companion. 
The tie which united the ill-assorted couple was 
doubtless the same which endeared Tarn O'Shan- 
ter to the souter : 2 — 

" They had been fou for weeks thegither." 

He took for his text the first seven verses of the 
concluding chapter of Ecclesiastes, furnishing in 
himself its fitting illustration. The evil days had 
come ; the keepers of the house trembled ; the 
windows of life were darkened. A few months 
later the silver cord was loosened, the golden bowl 
was broken, and between the poor old man and 
the temptations which beset him fell the thick cur- 
tains of the grave. 

One day we had a call from a "pawky auld 
carle " 3 of a wandering Scotchman. To him I owe 

1 Nathaniel Emmons was a New England theologian of marked 
character and power, who for seventy years was connected with 
a church in that part of Wrentham, Mass., now called Franklin. 
He exercised considerable influence over the religious thought 
of New England, and is still read by theologians. He died in 
1840, in his ninety-sixth year. 

2 Souter (or cobbler) Johnny, in Burns's poetic tale of Tarn 
0' Shunter, had been fou 1 or full of drink with Tarn for weeks 
together. 

3 From the first line of The Gaberlunzie Man, attributed to 
King James V. of Scotland, — 

" The pawky auld carle came o ; er the lee." 



YANKEE GYPSIES. 211 

my first introduction to the songs of Burns. After 
eating his bread and cheese and drinking his mug 
of cider he gave us Bonny Doon, Highland Mary, 
and Auld Lang Syne. He had a rich, full voice, 
and entered heartily into the spirit of his lyrics. I 
have since listened to the same melodies from the 
lips of Dempster 1 (than whom the Scottish bard 
has had no sweeter or truer interpreter), but the 
skilful performance of the artist lacked the novel 
charm of the gaberlunzie's singing in the old farm- 
house kitchen. Another wanderer made us ac- 
quainted with the humorous old ballad of " Our 
gude man cam hame at e'en." He applied for 
supper and lodging, and the next morning was set 
at work splitting stones in the pasture. While 
thus engaged the village doctor came riding along 
the highway on his fine, spirited horse, and stopped 
to talk with my father. The fellow eyed the an- 
imal attentively, as if familiar with all his good 
points, and hummed over a stanza of the old 
poem : — 

"Our gude man cam hame at e'en, 
And hame cam he ; 
And there he saw a saddle horse 
Where nae horse should be. 

The original like Whittier's was a sly old fellow, as an Eng- 
lish phrase would translate the Scottish. The Gaberlunzie Man 
is given in Percy's Eeliques of Ancient Poetry and in Child's 
English and Scottish Ballads, viii. 98. 

1 William R. Dempster, a Scottish vocalist who had recently 
sung in America, and whose music to Burns's song ■' A man 's a 
man for a' that " was very popular. 



212 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHITTIER. 

' How cam this horse here ? 
How can it be ? 

How cam this horse here 
Without the leave of me ? ' 
' A horse V ' quo she. 
'Ay, a horse,' quo he. 
'Ye auld fool, ye blind fool, — 

And blinder might ye be, — 
'T is naething but a milking cow 

My mamma sent to me.' 
' A milch cow? ' quo he. 
' Ay, a milch cow,' quo she. 
' Weel, far hae I ridden, 

And muckle hae I seen ; 
But milking cows wi' saddles on 

Saw I never nane.' " 1 

That very night the rascal decamped, taking 
with him the doctor's horse, and was never after 
heard of. 

Often, in the gray of the morning, we used to see 
one or more " gaberlunzie men," pack on shoulder 
and staff in hand, emerging from the barn or other 
outbuildings where they had passed the night. I 
was once sent to the barn to fodder the cattle late 
in the evening, and, climbing into the mow to pitch 
down hay for that purpose, I was startled by the 
sudden apparition of a man rising up before me, 
just discernible in the dim moonlight streaming 
through the seams of the boards. I made a rapid 
retreat down the ladder ; and was only reassured 
by hearing the object of my terror calling after me, 
and recognizing his voice as that of a harmless old 

1 The whole of this song may be found in Herd's Ancient 
and Modern Scottish Songs, ii. 172. 



YANKEE GYPSIES. 213 

pilgrim whom I had known before. Our farm- 
house was situated in a lonely valley, half sur- 
rounded with woods, with no neighbors in sight. 
One dark, cloudy night, when our parents chanced 
to be absent, we were sitting with our aged grand- 
mother in the fading light of the kitchen fire, work- 
ing ourselves into a very satisfactory state of ex- 
citement and terror by recounting to each other all 
the dismal stories we could remember of ghosts, 
witches, haunted houses, and robbers, when we were 
suddenly startled by a loud rap at the door. A 
stripling of fourteen, I was very naturally regarded 
as the head of the household ; so, with many mis- 
givings, I advanced to the door, which I slowly 
opened, holding the candle tremulously above my 
head and peering out into the darkness. The fee- 
ble glimmer played upon the apparition of a gigan- 
tic horseman, mounted on a steed of a size worthy 
of such a rider ■ — colossal, motionless, like images 
cut out of the solid night. The strange visitant 
gruffly saluted me ; and, after making several inef- 
fectual efforts to urge his horse in at the door, dis- 
mounted and followed me into the room, evidently 
enjoying the terror which his huge presence excited. 
Announcing himself as the great Indian doctor, 
he drew himself up before the fire, stretched his 
arms, clinched his fists, struck his broad chest, and 
invited our attention to what he called his " mortal 
frame." He demanded in succession all kinds of 
intoxicating liquors ; and on being assured that we 
had none to give him, he grew angry, threatened 



214 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

to swallow my younger brother alive, and, seizing 
me by the hair of my head as the angel did the 
prophet at Babylon, 1 led me about from room to 
room. After an ineffectual search, in the course 
of which he mistook a jug of oil for one of brandy, 
and, contrary to my explanations and remonstrances, 
insisted upon swallowing a portion of its contents, 
he released me, fell to crying and sobbing, and 
confessed that he was so drunk already that his 
horse was ashamed of him. After bemoaning and 
pitying himself to his satisfaction he wiped his 
eyes, and sat down by the side of my grandmother, 
giving her to understand that he was very much 
pleased with her appearance ; adding, that if agree- 
able to her, he should like the privilege of paying 
his addresses to her. While vainly endeavoring to 
make the excellent old lady comprehend his very 
flattering proposition, he was interrupted by the 
return of my father, who, at once understanding 
the matter, turned him out of doors without cere- 
mony. 

On one occasion, a few years ago, on my return 
from the field at evening, I was told that a for- 
eigner had asked for lodgings during the night, but 
that, influenced by his dark, repulsive appearance, 
my mother had very reluctantly refused his re- 
quest. I found her by no means satisfied with 
her decision. " What if a son of mine was in a 
strange land ? " she inquired, self-reproachfully. 
Greatly to her relief, I volunteered to go in pursuit 
1 See Ezekiel viii. 3. 



YANKEE GYPSIES. 215 

of the wanderer, and, taking a cross-path over the 
fields, soon overtook him. He had just been re- 
jected at the house of our nearest neighbor, and 
was standing in a state of dubious perplexity in the 
street. His looks quite justified my mother's sus- 
picions. He was an olive-complexioned, black- 
bearded Italian, with an eye like a live coal, such a 
face as perchance looks out on the traveller in the 
passes of the Abruzzi, 1 — one of those bandit 
visages which .Salvator ' 2 has painted. With some 
difficulty I gave him to understand my errand, when 
he overwhelmed me with thanks, and joyfully fol- 
lowed me back. He took his seat with us at the 
supper-table ; and, when we were all gathered 
around the hearth that cold autumnal evening, he 
told us, partly by words and partly by gestures, 
the story of his life and misfortunes, amused us 
with descriptions of the grape-gatherings and fes- 
tivals of his sunny clime, edified my mother with a 
recipe for making bread of chestnuts; and in the 
morning, when, after breakfast, his dark sullen 
face lighted up and his fierce eye moistened with 
grateful emotion as in his own silvery Tuscan ac- 
cent he poured out his thanks, we marvelled at the 
fears which had so nearly closed our door against 
him ; and, as he departed, we all felt that he had left 
with us the blessing of the poor. 

1 Provinces into which the old kingdom of Naples was di- 
vided. 

2 Salvator Rosa was a Neapolitan by birth, and was said to 
have been himself a bandit in his youth ; his landscapes often 
contain figures drawn from the wild life of the region. 



216 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIEU. 

It was not often that, as in the above instance, 
my mother's prudence got the better of her charity. 
The regular " old stragglers " regarded her as an 
unfailing friend ; and the sight of her plain cap was 
to them an assurance of forthcoming creature-com- 
forts. There was indeed a tribe of lazy strollers, 
having their place of rendezvous in the town of 
Barrington, New Hampshire, whose low vices had 
placed them beyond even the pale of her benevo- 
lence. They were not unconscious of their evil 
reputation ; and experience had taught them the 
necessity of concealing, under well-contrived dis- 
guises, their true character. They came to us in 
all shapes and with all appearances save the true 
one, with most miserable stories of mishap and 
sickness and all " the ills which flesh is heir to." 
It was particularly vexatious to discover, when too 
late, that our sympathies and charities had been 
expended upon such graceless vagabonds as the 
" Barrington beggars." An old withered hag, 
known by the appellation of Hopping Pat, — the 
wise woman of her tribe, — was in the habit of 
visiting us, with her hopeful grandson, who had 
" a gift for preaching " as well as for many other 
things not exactly compatible with holy orders. 
He sometimes brought with him a tame crow, a 
shrewd, knavish-looking bird, who, when in the hu- 
mor for it, could talk like Barnaby Rudge's raven. 
He used to say he could " do nothin' at exhortin' 
without a white handkercher on his neck and money 
in his pocket," — a fact going far to confirm the 



YANKEE GYPSIES. 217 

opinions of the Bishop of Exeter and the Puseyites 
generally, that there can be no priest without tithes 
and surplice. 

These people have for several generations lived 
distinct from the great mass of the community, 
like the gypsies of Europe, whom in many respects 
they closely resemble. They have the same set- 
tled aversion to labor and the same disposition to 
avail themselves of the fruits of the industry of 
others. They love a wild, out-of-door life, sing 
songs, tell fortunes, and have an instinctive hatred 
of " missionaries and cold water." It has been 
said — I know not upon what grounds — that their 
ancestors were indeed a veritable importation of 
English gypsyhood ; but if so, they have undoubt- 
edly lost a good deal of the picturesque charm of 
its unhoused and free condition. I very much fear 
that my friend Mary Russell Mitford, — sweetest 
of England's rural painters, — who has a poet's 
eye for the fine points in gypsy character, would 
scarcely allow their claims to fraternity with her 
own vagrant friends, whose camp-fires welcomed 
her to her new home at Swallowfield. 1 

" The proper study of mankind is man ; " and, 
according to my view, no phase of our common 
humanity is altogether unworthy of investigation. 
Acting upon this belief two or three summers ago, 
when making, in company with my sister, a little 
excursion into the hill-country of New Hampshire, 
I turned my horse's head towards Barrington for 
1 See in Miss Mitford' s Our Village. 



218 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHIT TIER. 

the purpose of seeing these semi-civilized strollers 
in their own home, and returning, once for all, their 
numerous visits. Taking leave of our hospitable 
cousins in old Lee with about as much solemnity as 
we may suppose Major Laing * parted with his 
friends when he set out in search of desert-girdled 
Timbuctoo, we drove several miles over a rough 
road, passed the Devil's Den unmolested, crossed a 
fretful little streamlet noisily working its way into 
a valley, where it turned a lonely, half-ruinous mill, 
and climbing a steep hill beyond, saw before us a 
wide, sandy level, skirted on the west and north by 
low, scraggy hills, and dotted here and there with 
dwarf pitch-pines. In the centre of this desolate 
region were some twenty or thirty small dwellings, 
grouped together as irregularly as a Hottentot 
kraal. Unfenced, unguarded, open to all comers 
and goers, stood that city of the beggars, — no wall 
or paling between the ragged cabins to remind one 
of the jealous distinctions of property. .The great 
idea of its founders seemed visible in its unappro- 
priated freedom. Was not the whole round world 
their own ? and should they haggle about bounda- 
ries and title-deeds ? For them, on distant plains, 

1 Alexander Gordon Laing was a major in the British army 
who served on the west coast of Africa and made journeys 
into the interior in the attempt to establish commercial relations 
with the natives, and especially to discover the sources of the 
Niger. He was treacherously murdered in 1826 by the guard 
that was attending him on his return from Timbuctoo to the 
coast. His travels excited great interest in their day in Eng- 
land and America. 



YANKEE GYPSIES. 219 

ripened golden harvests ; for them, in far-off work- 
shops, busy hands were toiling ; for them, if they 
had but the grace to note it, the broad earth put on 
her garniture of beauty, and over them hung the 
silent mystery of heaven and its stars. That com- 
fortable philosophy which modern transcendentalism 
has but dimly shadowed forth, — that poetic agra- 
rianism, which gives all to each and each to all, — 
is the real life of this city of unwork. To each of 
its dingy dwellers might be not unaptly applied the 
language of one who, I trust, will pardon me for 
quoting her beautiful poem in this connection : — 

" Other hands may grasp the field and forest, 
Proud proprietors in pomp may shine, 

Thou art wealthier, — all the world is thine." 1 

But look ! the clouds are breaking. " Fair 
weather cometh out of the north." The wind has 
blown away the mists ; on the gilded spire of John 
Street glimmers a beam of sunshine ; and there is 
the sky again, hard, blue, and cold in its eternal 
purity, not a whit the worse for the storm. In the 
beautiful present the past is no longer needed. 
Reverently and gratefully let its volume be laid 
aside ; and when again the shadows of the outward 
world fall upon the spirit may I not lack a good 
angel to remind me of its solace, even if he comes 
in the shape of a Barrington beggar. 

i From a poem, Why Thus Longing ? by Mrs. Harriet Wins- 
low Sewall, preserved in Whittier's Songs of Three Centuries. 



220 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

II. 
THE BOY CAPTIVES. 

AN INCIDENT OF THE INDIAN WAR OF 1695. 

The township of Haverhill, even as late as the 
close of the seventeenth century, was a frontier 
settlement, occupying an advanced position in the 
great wilderness, which, unbroken by the clearing 
of a white man, extended from the Merrimac River 
to the French villages on the St. Francois. A 
tract of twelve miles on the river and three or four 
northwardly was occupied by scattered settlers, 
while in the centre of the town a compact village 
had grown up. In the immediate vicinity there 
were but few Indians, and these generally peaceful 
and inoffensive. On the breaking out of the Nar- 
ragansett War, 1 the inhabitants had erected fortifi- 
cations, and taken other measures for defence ; but, 
with the possible exception of one man who was 
found slain in the woods in 1676, none of the in- 
habitants were molested ; and it was not until about 
the year 1689 that the safety of the settlement was 
seriously threatened. Three persons were killed 
in that year. In 1690 six garrisons were estab- 
lished in different parts of the town, with a small 

1 The u Narragansett War " was a name applied to that part 
of King Philip's War which resulted from the defection of the 
powerful tribe of Narragansetts, formerly allies of the English, 
to the standard of the Indian chief. 



THE BOY CAPTIVES. 221 

company of soldiers attached to each. Two of these 
houses are still standing. They were built of brick, 
two stories high, with a single outside door, so small 
and narrow that but one person could enter at a 
time ; the windows few, and only about two and a 
half feet long by eighteen inches wide, with thick 
diamond glass secured with lead, and crossed inside 
with bars of iron. The basement had but two 
rooms, and the chamber was entered by a ladder 
instead of stairs ; so' that the inmates, if driven 
thither, could cut off communication with the rooms 
below. Many private houses were strengthened 
and fortified. We remember one familiar to our 
boyhood, — a venerable old building of wood, with 
brick between the weather-boards and ceiling, with 
a massive balustrade over the door, constructed of 
oak timber and plank, with holes through the lat- 
ter for firing upon assailants. The door opeued 
upon a stone-paved hall, or entry, leading into the 
huge single room of the basement, which was lighted 
by two small windows, the ceiling black with the 
smoke of a century and a half ; a huge fireplace, 
calculated for eight-feet wood, occupying one entire 
side ; while, overhead, suspended from the timbers, 
or on shelves fastened to them, were household 
stores, farming utensils, fishing-rods, guns, bunches 
of herbs gathered perhaps a century ago, strings of 
dried apples and. pumpkins, links of mottled sau- 
sages, spareribs, and flitches of bacon ; the fire-light 
of an evening dimly revealing the checked woollen 
coverlet of the bed in one far-off corner, while in 
another — 



222 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" The pewter plates on the dresser 
Caught and reflected the flame as shields of armies the sun- 
shine." 1 

Tradition has preserved many incidents of life 
in the garrisons. In times of unusual peril the 
settlers generally resorted at night to the fortified 
houses, taking thither their flocks and herds and 
such household valuables as were most likely to 
strike the fancy or minister to the comfort or van- 
ity of the heathen marauders. False alarms were 
frequent. The smoke of a distant fire, the bark of 
a dog in the deep woods, a stump or bush, taking 
in the uncertain light of stars and moon the ap- 
pearance of a man, were sufficient to spread alarm 
through the entire settlement and to cause the 
armed men of the garrison to pass whole nights in 
sleepless watching. It is said that at Haselton's 
garrison-house the sentinel on duty saw, as he 
thought, an Indian inside of the paling which sur- 
rounded the building, and apparently seeking to 
gain an entrance. He promptly raised his musket 
and fired at the intruder, alarming thereby the 
entire garrison. The women and children left their 
beds, and the men seized their guns and com- 
menced firing on the suspicious object ; but it 
seemed to bear a charmed life, and remained un- 
harmed. As the morning dawned, however, the 
mystery was solved by the discovery of a black 
quilted petticoat hanging on the clothes'-line, com- 
pletely riddled with balls. 

1 Longfellow's Evangeline, w. 205, 206. 



THE BOY CAPTIVES. 223 

As a matter of course, under circumstances of 
perpetual alarm and frequent peril, the duty of 
cultivating their fields, and gathering their harvests, 
and working at their mechanical avocations, was 
dangerous and difficult to the settlers. One in- 
stance will serve as an illustration. At the garri- 
son-house of Thomas Dustin, the husband of the 
far-famed Mary Dustin (who, while a captive of 
the Indians, and maddened by the murder of her 
infant child, killed and scalped, with the assistance 
of a young boy, the entire band of her captors, ten 
in number), the business of brick-making was car- 
ried on. The pits where the clay was found were 
only a few rods from the house ; yet no man vent- 
ured to bring the clay to the yard within the in- 
closure, without the attendance of a file of soldiers. 
An anecdote relating to this garrison has been 
handed down to the present time. Among its in- 
mates were two young cousins, Joseph and Mary 
Whittaker ; the latter a merry, handsome girl, re- 
lieving the tedium of garrison-duty with her light- 
hearted mirthfulness and — 

" Making a sunshine in that shady place." 1 

Joseph, in the intervals of his labors in the 
double capacity of brick-maker and man-at-arms, 
was assiduous in his attentions to his fair cousin, 

1 " Her angel's face 
As the great eye of heaven shyned bright, 
And made a sunshine in the shadie place ; 
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace." 

Spenser: The Faery Queene, bk. I. canto iii. st. 4. 



224 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

who was not inclined to encourage him. Growing 
desperate, he threatened one evening to throw him- 
self into the garrison well. His threat only called 
forth the laughter of his mistress ; and, bidding her 
farewell, he proceeded to put it in execution. On 
reaching the well he stumbled over a log ; where- 
upon, animated by a happy idea, he dropped the 
wood into the water instead of himself, and, hiding 
behind the curb, awaited the result. Mary, who 
had been listening at the door, and who had not 
believed her lover capable of so rash an act, heard 
the sudden plunge of the wooden Joseph. She ran 
to the well, and, leaning over the curb and peering 
down the dark opening, cried out, in tones of an- 
guish and remorse, " O Joseph, if you 're in the 
land of the living, I '11 have you ! " "I '11 take ye 
at your word," answered Joseph, springing up from 
his hiding-place and avenging himself for her coy- 
ness and coldness by a hearty embrace. 

Our own paternal ancestor, owing to religious 
scruples in the matter of taking arms even for de- 
fence of life and property, refused to leave his un- 
defended house and enter the garrison. The Indi- 
ans frequently came to his house ; and the family 
more than once in the night heard them whispering 
under the windows, and saw them put their copper 
faces to the glass to take a view of the apartments. 
Strange as it may seem, they never offered any in- 
jury or insult to the inmates. 

In 1695 the township was many times molested 
by Indians, and several persons were killed and 



THE BOY CAPTIVES. 225 

wounded. Early in the fall a small party made 
their appearance in the northerly part of the town, 
where, finding two boys at work in an open field, 
they managed to surprise and capture them, and, 
without committing further violence, retreated 
through the woods to their homes on the shore of 
Lake Winnipiseogee. Isaac Bradley, aged fifteen, 
was a small but active and vigorous boy ; his com- 
panion in captivity, Joseph Whittaker, was only 
eleven, yet quite as large in size, and heavier in his 
movements. After a hard and painful journey they 
arrived at the lake, and were placed in an Indian 
family, consisting of a man and squaw and two or 
three children. Here they soon acquired a suffi- 
cient knowledge of the Indian tongue to enable 
them to learn from the conversation carried on in 
their presence that it was designed to take them to 
Canada in the spring. This discovery was a pain- 
ful one. Canada, the land of Papist priests and 
bloody Indians, was the especial terror of the New 
England settlers, and the anathema maranatha * of 
Puritan pulpits. Thither the Indians usually hur- 
ried their captives, where they compelled them to 
work in their villages or sold them to the French 
planters. Escape from thence through a deep 
wilderness, and across lakes, and mountains, and 

1 Anathema maranatha occurs at the close of St. Paul's first 
epistle to the Corinthians, and in the English version is made to 
appear as a composite phrase. It has so passed into common 
use, maranatha being taken as intensifying the curse contained 
in anathema. The words are properly to be divided, maranatha 
signifying " The Lord cometh." 
15 



226 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

almost impassable rivers, without food or guide, 
was regarded as an impossibility. The poor boys, 
terrified by the prospect of being carried still far- 
ther from their home and friends, began to dream 
of escaping from their masters before they started 
for Canada. It was now winter ; it would have 
been little short of madness to have chosen for 
flight that season of bitter cold and deep snows. 
Owing to exposure and want of proper food and 
clothing, Isaac, the eldest of the boys, was seized 
with a violent fever, from which he slowly recovered 
in the course of the winter. His Indian mistress 
was as kind to him as her circumstances permitted, 
— procuring medicinal herbs and roots for her pa- 
tient, and tenderly watching over him in the long 
winter nights. Spring came at length ; the snows 
melted ; and the ice was broken up on the lake. 
The Indians began to make preparations for jour- 
neying to Canada ; and Isaac, who had during his 
sickness devised a plan of escape, saw that the time 
of putting it in execution had come. On the even- 
ing before he was to make the attempt he for the 
first time informed his younger companion of his 
design, and told him, if he intended to accompany 
him, he must be awake at the time appointed. The 
boys lay down as usual in the wigwam in the midst 
of the family. Joseph soon fell asleep ; but Isaac, 
fully sensible of the danger and difficulty of the 
enterprise before him, lay awake, watchful for his 
opportunity. About midnight he rose, cautiously 
stepping over the sleeping forms of the family, and 



THE BOY CAPTIVES. 227 

securing, as he went, his Indian master's flint, steel, 
and tinder, and a small quantity of dry moose-meat 
and corn-bread. He then carefully awakened his 
companion, who, starting up, forgetful of the cause 
of his disturbance, asked aloud, " What do you 
want ? " The savages began to stir ; and Isaac, 
trembling with fear of detection, lay down again 
and pretended to be asleep. After waiting a while 
he again rose, satisfied, from the heavy breathing 
of the Indians, that they were all sleeping ; and 
fearing to awaken Joseph a second time, lest he 
should again hazard all by his thoughtlessness, he 
crept softly out of the wigwam. He had proceeded 
but a few rods when he heard footsteps behind him ; 
and, supposing himself pursued, he hurried into the 
woods, casting a glance backward. What was his 
joy to see his young companion running after him ! 
They hastened on in a southerly direction as nearly 
as they could determine, hoping to reach their dis- 
tant home. When daylight appeared they found a 
large hollow log, into which they crept for conceal- 
ment, wisely judging that they would be hotly pur- 
sued by their Indian captors. 

Their sagacity was by no means at fault. The 
Indians, missing their prisoners in the morning, 
started off in pursuit with their dogs. As the 
young boys lay in the log they could hear the 
whistle of the Indians and the barking of dogs 
upon their track. It was a trying moment ; and 
even the stout heart of the elder boy sank within 
him as the dogs came up to the log and set up a 



228 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

loud bark of discovery. But his presence of mind 
saved him. He spoke in a low tone to the dogs, 
who, recognizing his familiar voice, wagged their 
tails with delight, and ceased barking. He then 
threw to them the morsel of moose-meat he had 
taken from the wigwam. While the dogs were 
thus diverted, the Indians made their appearance. 
The boys heard the light, stealthy sound of their 
moccasins on the leaves. They passed close to 
the log ; and the dogs, having devoured their 
moose-meat, trotted after their masters. Through 
a crevice in the log the boys looked after them, 
and saw them disappear in the thick woods. They 
remained in their covert until night, when they 
started again on their long journey, taking a new 
route to avoid the Indians. At daybreak they 
again concealed themselves, but travelled the next 
night and day without resting. By this time they 
had consumed all the bread which they had taken, 
and were fainting from hunger and weariness. 
Just at the close of the third day they were provi- 
dentially enabled to kill a pigeon and a small tor- 
toise, a part of which they ate raw, not daring to 
make a fire, which might attract the watchful eyes 
of savages. On the sixth day they struck upon an 
old Indian path, and, following it until night, came 
suddenly upon a camp of the enemy. Deep in the 
heart of the forest, under the shelter of a ridge 
of land heavily timbered, a great fire of logs and 
brushwood was burning ; and around it the In- 
dians sat, eating their moose-meat and smoking their 
pipes. 



THE BOY CAPTIVES. 229 

The poor fugitives, starving, weary, and chilled 
by the cold spring blasts, gazed down upon the 
ample fire, and the savory meats which the squaws 
were cooking by it, but felt no temptation to pur- 
chase warmth and food by surrendering themselves 
to captivity. Death in the forest seemed prefer- 
able. They turned mid fled back upon their track, 
expecting every moment to hear the yells of pur- 
suers. The morning found them seated on the 
bank of a small stream, their feet torn and bleed- 
ing, and their bodies emaciated. The elder, as a 
last effort, made search for roots, and fortunately 
discovered a few ground-nuts {glycine apios), which 
served to refresh in some degree himself and his 
still weaker companion. As they stood together 
by the stream, hesitating and almost despairing, it 
occurred to Isaac that the rivulet might lead to a 
larger stream of water, and that to the sea and the 
white settlements near it ; and he resolved to fol- 
low it. They again began their painful march ; the 
day passed, and the night once more overtook them. 
When the eighth morning dawned, the younger of 
the boys found himself unable to rise from his bed 
of leaves. Isaac endeavored to encourage him, dug 
roots, and procured water for him ; but the poor 
lad was utterly exhausted. He had no longer heart 
or hope. The elder boy laid him on leaves and 
dry grass at the foot of a tree, and with a heavy 
heart bade him farewell. Alone he slowly and 
painfully proceeded down the stream, now greatly 
increased in size by tributary rivulets. On the top 



230 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITT1ER. 

of a hill he climbed with difficulty into a tree, and 
saw in the distance what seemed to be a clearing 
and a newly-raised frame building. Hopeful and 
rejoicing, he turned back to his young companion, 
told him what he had seen, and, after chafing his 
limbs awhile, got him upon his feet. Sometimes 
supporting him, and at others carrying him on his 
back, the heroic boy staggered towards the clear- 
ing. On reaching it he found it deserted, and was 
obliged to continue his journey. Towards night 
signs of civilization began to appear, — the heavy, 
continuous roar of water was heard; and, pres- 
ently emerging from the forest, he saw a great 
river dashing in white foam down precipitous rocks, 
and on its bank the gray walls of a huge stone 
building, with flankers, palisades, and moat, over 
which the British flag was flying. This was the 
famous Saco Fort, built by Governor Phips, 1 two 
years before, just below the falls of the Saco River. 
The soldiers of the garrison gave the poor fellows 
a kindly welcome. Joseph, who was scarcely alive, 
lay for a long time sick in the fort ; but Isaac soon 
regained his strength, and set out for his home in 
Haverhill, which he had the good fortune to arrive 
at in safety. 

Amidst the stirring excitements of the present 
day, when every thrill of the electric wire conveys 

1 An interesting account of Sir William Phips will be found 
in Parknaan's Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. 
Hawthorne also tells his romantic story in Fanshawe and Other 
Pieces. 



THE BOY CAPTIVES. 231 

a new subject for thought or action to a generation 
as eager as the ancient Athenians for some new 
thing, simple legends of the past like that which 
we have transcribed have undoubtedly lost in a 
great degree their interest. The lore of the fire- 
side is becoming obsolete, and with the octogena- 
rian few who still linger among us, will perish the 
unwritten history of border life in New England. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



INTRODUCTION". 

IN the early years of Dr. Holmes's career his 
literary reputation rested on verse which seemed 
the playful pastime of a professional man. To 
students in medicine indeed, he was known as a 
keen writer, and his published papers upon pro- 
fessional topics showed how valuable was his lit- 
erary skill in presenting subjects of a scientific 
nature. To the general public, however, his prose 
was known chiefly through the medium of the pop- 
ular lecture, and the impression was easily created 
that he was a witty and humorous writer with a 
turn for satire. It was not until he delivered the 
as yet unpublished lectures on the English Poets of 
the Nineteenth Century before the Lowell Institute 
in Boston, in 1852, that the wider range of his 
thought and the penetration of his poetic insight 
were recognized. Five or six years later a better 
occasion came, and in the first number of Tlie Atlan- 
tic Monthly was begun a series of prose writings, 
which under various names gave a new and impor- 
tant place in literature to the author. The first of 



INTRODUCTION. 233 

the series was The Autocrat of the Breakfast- Table, 
the last, The Poet at the Breakfast -Table, and in 
this the writer distinctly says what the observant 
reader of the series will be pretty sure to discover 
for himself : " I have unburdened myself in this 
book, and in some other pages, of what I was born 
to say. Many things that I have said in my riper 
days have been aching in my soul since I was a 
mere child. I say aching, because they conflicted 
with many of my inherited beliefs, or rather tradi- 
tions. I did not know then that two strains of 
blood were striving in me for the mastery — two ! 
twenty, perhaps — twenty thousand, for aught I 
know — but represented to me by two — paternal 
and maternal. But I do know this : I have struck 
a good many chords, first and last, in the conscious- 
ness of other people. I confess to a tender feeling 
for my little brood of thoughts. When they have 
been welcomed and praised, it has pleased me ; and 
if at any time they have been rudely handled and 
despitefully treated, it has cost me a little worry. 
I don't despise reputation, and I should like to be 
remembered as having said something worth lasting 
well enough to last." 

This passage briefly presents three very notice- 
able characteristics of Dr. Holmes's prose as con- 
tained in the series of Atlantic papers and stories. 
They give the mature thought of the writer, held 
back through many years for want of an adequate 
occasion, and ripened in his mind during this en- 
forced silence ; they illustrate the effect upon his 



234 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

thought of his professional studies, which predis- 
posed him to treat of the natural history of man, 
and to import into his analysis of the invisible or- 
ganism of life the terms and methods employed in 
the science of the visible anatomy and physiology ; 
and finally they are warm with a sympathy for men 
and women, and singularly felicitous in their ex- 
pression of many of the indistinct and half-under- 
stood experiences of life. For their form it may 
be said that the impression produced upon the 
reader of the Autocrat series which was finally 
gathered into a volume, is of a growth rather than 
of a premeditated artistic completeness. The first 
suggestion is found in the two papers under the 
title of The Autocrat of the Breakfast- Table, pub- 
lished in The New England Magazine for Novem- 
ber, 1831, and January, 1832. These were written 
by Dr. Holmes shortly after his graduation from 
college and before he entered on his medical studies. 
They consist of brief, epigrammatic observations 
upon various topics, the desultory talk of a person 
engrossing conversation at a table. The form is 
monologue with scarcely more than a hint at in- 
terruptions, and no attempt at characterizing the 
speaker or his listeners. Twenty-five years later, 
when The Atlantic Monthly was founded, the author 
remembering the fancy resumed it, and under the 
same title began a series of papers which at once 
had great favor and grew, possibly, beyond the 
writer's original intention. Twenty-five years had 
not dulled the wit and gayety of the exuberant 



INTRODUCTION. 235 

young author ; rather, they had ripened the early 
fruit and imparted a richness of flavor which greatly 
increased the value. The maturity was seen not 
only in the wider reach and deeper tone of the talk, 
but in the humanizing of the scheme. Out of the 
talk at the breakfast-table one began to distinguish 
characters and faces in the persons about the board, 
and before the Autocrat was completed, there had 
appeared a series of portraits, vivid and full of in- 
terest. Two characters meanwhile were hinted at 
by the author rather than described or very palpa- 
bly introduced, the Professor and the Poet. It is 
not difficult to see that these are thin disguises for 
the author himself, who, in the versatility of his 
nature, appeals to the reader now as a brilliant 
philosopher, now as a man of science, now as a seer 
and poet. The Professor at the Breakfast-Table 
followed, and there was a still stronger dramatic 
power disclosed; some of the former characters 
remained and others of even more positive individ- 
uality were added ; a romance was inwoven and 
something like a plot sketched, so that while the 
talk still went on and eddied about graver subjects 
than before, the book which grew out of the papers 
had more distinctly the form of a series of sketches 
from life. It was followed by two novels, Elsie 
Venner and The Guardian Angel. The talks at 
the breakfast-table had often gravitated toward 
the deep themes of destiny and human freedom ; 
the novels wrought the same subjects in dramatic 
form, and action interpreted the thought, while still 



236 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

there flowed on the wonderful, apparently inex- 
haustible stream of wit, tenderness, passion, and 
human sympathy. Once more, fourteen years after 
the appearance of the first of the series, came The 
Poet at the Breakfast- Table. A new group of char- 
acters, with slight reminders of former ones, occu- 
pied the pages, again talk and romance blended, 
and playfulness, satire, sentiment, wise reflection, 
and sturdy indignation followed in quick succes- 
sion. 

The Breakfast-Table series forms a group, in- 
dependent of the intercalated novels, and, with its 
frequent poems, may be taken as an artistic whole. 
It is hardly too much to say that it makes a new 
contribution to the forms of literary art. The elas- 
ticity of the scheme rendered possible a comprehen- 
siveness of material ; the exuberance of the author's 
fancy and the fullness of his thought gave a richness 
to the fabric ; the poetic sense of fitness kept the 
whole within just bounds. Moreover, the person- 
ality of the author was vividly present in all parts. 
There are few examples of literature in the first 
person so successful as this. 

It is from The Poet at the Breakfast-Table that 
the following episode is taken. 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 237 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE AND 
ITS OUTLOOK. 

A PANORAMA, WITH SIDE-SHOWS. 

My birthplace, the home of my childhood and 
earlier and later boyhood, has within a few months 
passed out of the ownership of my family into the 
hands of that venerable Alma Mater who seems 
to have renewed her youth, and has certainly re- 
painted her dormitories. In truth, when I last 
revisited that familiar scene and looked upon the 
flammantia mcenia 2 of the old halls, " Massachu- 
setts " with the dummy clock-dial, 3 " Harvard " with 
the garrulous belfry, 4 little " Holden " 5 with the 

1 " Know old Cambridge? Hope you do. — 
Born there ? Don't say so ! I was too. 
(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof, — 
Standing still, if you must have proof. — 
' Gambrel ? — Gambrel-? ' — Let me beg 
You '11 look at a horse's hinder leg, — 
First great angle above the hoof, — 
That's the gambrel ; hence gambrel-roof.) " 
Parson Turell's Legacy in The Autocrat of the BreaTcfast- 
Table. 

2 Flame-red walls. 

3 Early views of Massachusetts show the clock in apparent 
activity. 

4 Harvard Hall holds in its belfry tower the college bell. 

5 Holden Chapel was built in 1744, and on the pediment front- 
ing the Common may be seen the arms of the Holden family of 
England, with whose gift the chapel was built. It has long been 
devoted to other uses. 



238 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

sculptured unpunishable cherubs over its portal, 
and the rest of my early brick-and-mortar acquaint- 
ances, 1 I could not help saying to myself that I had 
lived to see the peaceable establishment of the Red 
Republic of Letters. 

Many of the things I shall put down I have no 
doubt told before in a fragmentary way, how many 
I cannot be quite sure, as I do not very often read 
my own prose works. But when a man dies a 
great deal is said of him which has often been said 
in other forms, and now this dear old house is dead 
to me in one sense, and I want to gather up my 
recollections and wind a string of narrative round 
them, tying them up like a nosegay for the last 
tribute : the same blossoms in it I have often laid 
on its threshold while it was still living for me. 

•We Americans are all cuckoos, — we make our 
homes in the nests of other birds. I have read 
somewhere that the lineal descendants of the man 
who carted off the body of William Rufus, with 
Walter Tyrrel's arrow sticking in it, have driven a 
cart (not absolutely the same one, I suppose) in the 
New Forest from that day to this. I don't quite 
understand Mr. Ruskin's saying (if he said it) that 
he could n't get along in a country where there 
were no castles, but I do think we lose a great deal 
in living where there are so few permanent homes. 
You will see how much I parted with which was 

l " There, in red brick, which softening time defies, 
Stand square and stiff the Muses' factories." 

An Indian Summer Reverie, by J. K. Lowell. 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 239 

not reckoned in the price paid for the old home- 
stead. 

I shall say many things which an uncharitable 
reader might find fault with as personal. I should 
not dare to call myself a poet if I did not ; for if 
there is anything that gives one a title to that 
name, it is that his inner nature is naked and is not 
ashamed. But there are many such things I shall 
put in words, not because they are personal, but 
because they are human, and are born of just such 
experiences as those who hear or read what I say 
are like to have had in greater or less measure. I 
find myself so much like other people that I often 
wonder at the coincidence. It was only the other 
day that I sent out a copy of verses x about my 
great-grandmother's picture, and I was surprised to 
find how many other people had portraits of their 
great-grandmothers or other progenitors, about 
which they felt as I did about mine, and for whom 
I had spoken, thinking I was speaking for myself 
only. And so I am not afraid to talk very freely 
with you, my precious reader or listener. You too, 
Beloved, were born somewhere and remember your 
birthplace or your early home ; for you some house 
is haunted by recollections ; to some roof you have 
bid farewell. Your hand is upon mine, then, as I 
guide my pen. Your heart frames the responses 
to the litany of my remembrance. For myself it 
is a tribute of affection I am rendering, and I 
should put it on record for my own satisfaction, 
were there none to read or to listen. 

1 See Dorothy Q., a Family Portrait. 



240 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

I hope you will not say that I have built a pil- 
lared portico of introduction to a humble structure 
of narrative. For when you look at the old gam- 
brel-roofed house, you will see an unpretending 
mansion, such as very possibly you were born in 
yourself, or at any rate such a place of residence 
as your minister or some of your well-to-do country 
cousins find good enough, but not at all too grand 
for them. We have stately old Colonial palaces 1 
in our ancient village, now a city, and a thriving 
one, — square-fronted edifices that stand back from 
the vulgar highway, with folded arms, as it were ; 
social fortresses of the time when the twilight lustre 
of the throne reached as far as our half-cleared 
settlement, with a glacis before them in the shape 
of a long broad gravel-walk, so that in King 
George's time they looked as formidable to any 
but the silk-stocking gentry as Gibraltar or Ehren- 
breitstein to a visitor without the password. We 
forget all this in the kindly welcome they give us 
to- day ; for some of them are still standing and 
doubly famous, as we all know. But the gambrel- 
roofed house, though stately enough for college 
dignitaries and scholarly clergymen, was not one 
of those old tory, Episcopal-church-goer's strong- 
holds. One of its doors opens directly upon the 
green, always called the Common ; the other, facing 

1 Such as what was known as the Bishop's Palace, the houses 
on Brattle Street occupied in Colonial days by Brattle, the Vas- 
sals, Oliver, Buggies, Lee, Sewall, and others. Most of the 
occupants were tories and Church of England men, and the prin- 
cipal line of mansions went by the name of Church Row. 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 241 

the south, a few steps from it, over a paved foot- 
walk, on the other side of which is the miniature 
front yard, bordered with lilacs and syringas. The 
honest mansion makes no pretensions. Accessi- 
ble, companionable, holding its hand out to all, 
comfortable, respectable, and even in its way digni- 
fied, but not imposing, not a house for his Majesty's 
Counsellor, or the Right Reverend successor of 
Him who had not where to lay his head, for some- 
thing like a hundred and fifty years it has stood in 
its lot, and seen the generations of men come and 
go like the leaves of the forest. I passed some 
pleasant hours, a few years since, in the Registry 
of Deeds and the Town Records, looking up the 
history of the old house. How those dear friends 
of mine, the antiquarians, for whose grave councils 
I compose my features on the too rare Thursdays 1 
when I am at liberty to meet them, in whose hu- 
man herbarium the leaves and blossoms of past 
generations are so carefully spread out and pressed 
and laid away, would listen to an expansion of the 
following brief details into an Historical Memoir ! 

The estate was the third lot of the eighth 
" Squadron " (whatever that might be), and in the 
year 1707 was allotted in the distribution of undi- 
vided lands to "Mr. ffox," the Reverend Jabez 
Fox, of Woburn, it may be supposed, as it passed 
from his heirs to the first Jonathan Hastings ; from 
him to his son, the long-remembered College Stew- 
ard; from him in the year 1792 to the Reverend 
1 The day of meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 
16 



242 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Eliphalet Pearson, Professor of Hebrew and other 
Oriental languages in Harvard College, whose 
large personality swam into my ken when I was 
looking forward to my teens ; from him to the pro- 
genitors of my unborn self. 

I wonder if there are any such beings nowadays 
as the great Eliphalet, with his large features and 
conversational b.asso profunda, seemed to me. 1 His 
very name had something elephantine about it, and 
it seemed to me that the house shook from cellar 
to garret at his foot-fall. Some have pretended 
that he had Olympian aspirations, and wanted to 
sit in the seat of Jove and bear the academic thun- 
derbolt and the segis inscribed Christo et Ecclesice. 
It is a common weakness enough to wish to find 
one's self in an empty saddle ; Cotton Mather was 
miserable all his days, I am afraid, after that entry 
in his Diary : " This Day Dr. Sewall was chosen 
President, for his Piety." 

There is no doubt that the men of the older gen- 
eration look bigger and more formidable to the boys 
whose eyes are turned up at their venerable counte- 
nances than the race which succeeds them, to the 
same boys grown older. Everything is twice as 
large, measured on a three-year-old's three-foot 
scale as On a thirty-year-old's six-foot scale ; but 
age magnifies and aggravates persons out of due 
proportion. Old people are a kind of monsters to 
little folks ; mild manifestations of the terrible, it 

1 See Dr. Holmes's reference to the great Eliphalet, in his 
poem,rAe School-Boy, vv. 256-262. 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 243 

may be, but still, with their white locks and ridged 
and grooved features, which those horrid little eyes 
exhaust of their details, like so many microscopes, 
not exactly what human beings ought to be. The 
middle-aged and young men have left comparatively 
faint impressions in my memory, but how grandly 
the procession of the old clergymen who filled our 
pulpit from time to time, and passed the day under 
our roof, marches before my closed eyes ! At their 
head the most venerable David Osgood, the majes- 
tic minister of Medford, with massive front and 
shaggy overshadowing eyebrows ; following in the 
train, mild-eyed John Foster of Brighton, with the 
lambent aurora of a smile about his pleasant mouth, 
which not even the " Sabbath " could subdue to the 
true Levitical aspect; and bulky Charles Stearns 
of Lincoln, author of " The Ladies' Philosophy of 
Love. A Poem. 1797." (howl stared at him! 
he was the first living person ever pointed out to 
me as a poet) ; and Thaddeus Mason Harris 1 of 
Dorchester (the same who, a poor youth, trudging 
along, staff in hand, being then in a stress of sore 
need, found all at once that somewhat was adher- 
ing to the end of his stick, which somewhat proved 

1 "I remember in my boyhood the little quaint old man, bent 
almost incredibly, but still wearing a hale aspect, who used to 
haunt the alcoves of the old library in Harvard Hall. It was 
rumored among us that he had once been appointed private sec- 
retary to Washington, but had resigned from illness ; and it was 
known that he was arranging and indexing for Mr. Sparks the 
one hundred and thirty-two manuscript volumes of Washing- 
ton's correspondence." T. W. Higginson: Memoir of Thad- 
deus William Harris (son of T. M. H. ). 



244 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

to be a gold ring of price, bearing the words, " God 
speed thee, Friend ! "), already in decadence as I 
remember him, with head slanting forward and 
downward as if looking for a place to rest in after 
his learned labors ; and that other Thaddeus, 1 the 
old man of West Cambridge, who outwatched the 
rest so long after they had gone to sleep in their 
own churchyards, that it almost seemed as if he 
meant to sit up until the morning of the resurrec- 
tion; and, bringing up the rear, attenuated but 
vivacious little Jonathan Homer of Newton, who 
was, to look upon, a kind of expurgated, reduced, 
and Americanized copy of Voltaire, but very unlike 
him in wickedness or wit. The good-humored 
junior member of our family always loved to make 
him happy by setting him chirruping about Miles 
Coverdale's Version, and the Bishop's Bible, and 
how he wrote to his friend Sir Isaac (Coffin) about 
something or other, and how Sir Isaac wrote back 
that he was very much pleased with the contents 
of his letter, and so on about Sir Isaac, ad libitum, 
— for the admiral was his old friend, and he was 
proud of him. The kindly little old gentleman was 
a collector of Bibles, and made himself believe he 
thought he should publish a learned Commentary 
some day or other ; but his friends looked for it 
only in the Greek Calends, — say on the 31st of 
April, when that should come round, if you would 
modernize the phrase. I recall also one or two 
exceptional and infrequent visitors with perfect 
1 Rev. Thaddeus Fiske, who died in 1855 at the age of 93 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 245 

distinctness : cheerful Elijah Kellogg, a lively mis- 
sionary from the region of the Quoddy Indians, 
with much hopeful talk about Sock Bason and his 
tribe ; also poor old Poor-house-Parson Isaac Smith, 
his head going like a China mandarin, as he dis- 
cussed the possibilities of the escape of that distin- 
guished captive whom he spoke of under the name, 
if I can reproduce phonetically its vibrating nasali- 
ties, of " General Mmbongaparty," — a name sug- 
gestive to my young imagination of a dangerous, 
loose- jointed skeleton, threatening us all like the 
armed figure of Death in my little New England 
Primer. 

I have mentioned only the names of those whose 
images come up pleasantly before me, and I do not 
mean to say anything which any descendant might 
not read smilingly. But there were some of the 
black-coated gentry whose aspect was not so agree- 
able to me. It is very curious to me to look back 
on my early likes and dislikes, and see how as a 
child I was attracted or repelled by such and such 
ministers, a good deal, as I found out long after- 
wards, according to their theological beliefs. On 
the whole, I think the old-fashioned New England 
divine softening down into Arminianism was about 
as agreeable as any of them. And here I may re- 
mark, that a mellowing rigorist is always a much 
pleasanter object to contemplate than a tightening 
liberal, as a cold day warming up to 32° Fahrenheit 
is much more agreeable than a warm one chilling 
down to the same temperature. The least pleas- 



246 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

ing change is that kind of mental hemiplegia which 
now and then attacks the rational side of a man 
at about the same period of life when one side of 
the body is liable to be palsied, and in fact is, very 
probably, the same thing as palsy, in another form. 
The worst of it is that the subjects of it never seem 
to suspect that they are intellectual invalids, stam- 
merers and cripples at best, but are all the time 
hitting out at their old friends with the well arm, 
and calling them hard names out of their twisted 
mouths. 

It was a real delight to have one of those good, 
hearty, happy, benignant old clergymen pass the 
Sunday with us, and I can remember some whose 
advent made the day feel almost like " Thanksgiv- 
ing." But now and then would come along a cler- 
ical visitor with a sad face and a wailing voice, 
which sounded exactly as if somebody must be ly- 
ing dead up-stairs, who took no interest in us chil- 
dren, except a painful one, as being in a bad way 
with our cheery looks, and did more to uhchris- 
tianize us with his woebegone ways than all his ser- 
mons were like to accomplish in the other direction. 
I remember one in particular, who twitted me so 
with my blessings as a Christian child, and whined 
so to me about the naked black children who, like 
the " Little Vulgar Boy," " had n't got no supper 
and had n't got no ma," and had n't got no Cate- 
chism, (how I wished for the moment I was a little 
black boy !) that he did more in that one day to 
make me a heathen than he had ever done in a 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 247 

month to make a Christain out of an infant Hot- 
tentot. What a debt we owe to our friends of the 
left centre, the Brooklyn and the Park Street and 
the Summer Street ministers ; good, wholesome, 
sound-bodied, sane-minded, cheerful-spirited men, 
who have taken the place of those wailing poitri- 
naires with the bandanna handkerchiefs round their 
meagre throats and a funeral service in their forlorn 
physiognomies ! I might have been a minister my- 
self, for aught I know, if this clergyman had not 
looked and talked so like an undertaker. 

All this belongs to one of the side-shows, to 
which I promised those who would take tickets to 
the main exhibition should have entrance gratis. If 
I were writing a poem you would expect, as a mat- 
ter of course, that there would be a digression now 
and then. 

To come back to the old house and its former 
tenant, the Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental 
languages. Fifteen years he lived with his family 
under its roof. I never found the slightest trace of 
him until a few years ago, when I cleaned and 
brightened with pious hands the brass lock of " the 
study," which had for many years been covered with 
a thick coat of paint. On that I found scratched, 
as" with a nail or fork, the following inscription : — 

E PE 

Only that and nothing more, but the story told 
itself. Master Edward Pearson, then about as high 



248 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

as the lock, was disposed to immortalize himself in 
monumental brass, and had got so far towards it, 
when a sudden interruption, probably a smart box 
on the ear, cheated him of his fame, except so far 
as this poor record may rescue it. Dead long ago. 
I remember him well, a grown man, as a visitor at 
a later period ; and, for some reason, I recall him 
in the attitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, standing 
full before a generous wood-fire, not facing it, but 
quite the contrary, a perfect picture of the content 
afforded by a blazing hearth contemplated from that 
point of view, and, as the heat stole through his 
person and kindled his emphatic features, seeming 
to me a pattern of manly beauty. What a statue 
gallery of posturing friends we all have in our 
memory ! The old Professor himself sometimes 
visited the house after it had changed hands. Of 
course, my recollections are not to be wholly trusted, 
but I always think I see his likeness in a profile 
face to be found among the illustrations of Rees's 
Cyclopaedia. (See Plates, Vol. IV., Plate 2, Paint- 
ing, Diversities of the Human Face, Fig. 4.) 

And now let us return to our chief picture. In 
the days of my earliest remembrance, a row of tall 
Lombardy poplars mounted guard on the western 
side of the old mansion. Whether, like the cypress, 
these trees suggest the idea of the funeral torch or 
the monumental spire, whether their tremulous 
leaves make us afraid by sympathy with their nerv- 
ous thrills, whether the faint balsamic smell of their 
leaves and their closely swathed limbs have in them 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 249 

vague hints of dead Pharaohs stiffened in their cere- 
ments, I will not guess ; but they always seemed to 
me to give an air of sepulchral sadness to the house 
before which they stood sentries. Not so with the 
row of elms which you may see leading up towards 
the western entrance. I think the patriarch of 
them all went over in the great gale of 1815 ; I 
know I used to shake the youngest of them with 
my hands, stout as it is now, with a trunk that 
would defy the bully of Crotona, or the .strong man 
whose liaison with the Lady Delilah proved so dis- 
astrous. 

The College plain would be nothing without its 
elms. As the long hair of a woman is a glory to 
her, so are these green tresses that bank them- 
selves against the sky in thick clustered masses, the 
ornament and the pride of the classic green. You 
know the " Washington elm," or if you do not, you 
had better rekindle your patriotism by reading the 
inscription, which tells you that under its shadow 
the great leader first drew his sword at the head of 
an American army. In a line with that you may 
see two others : the coral fan, as I always called it 
from its resemblance in form to that beautiful ma- 
rine growth, and a third a little farther along. I 
have heard it said that all three were planted at the 
same time, and that the difference of their growth 
is due to the slope of the ground, — the Washing- 
ton elm being lower than either of the others. 
There is a row of elms just in front of the old 
house on the south. When I was a child the one 



250 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

at the southwest corner was struck by lightning, 
and one of its limbs and a long ribbon of bark torn 
away. The tree never fully recovered its sym- 
metry and vigor, and forty years and more after- 
wards a second thunderbolt crashed upon it and set 
its heart on fire, like those of the lost souls in the 
Hall of Eblis. Heaveu had twice blasted it, and 
the axe finished what the lightning had begun. 

The soil of the University town is divided into 
patches of sandy and of clayey ground. The Com- 
mon and the College green, near which the old 
house stands, are on one of the sandy patches. 
Four curses are the local inheritance : droughts, 
dust, mud, and canker-worms. I cannot but think 
that all the characters of a region help to modify 
the children born in it. I am fond of making apol- 
ogies for human nature, and I think I could find an 
excuse for myself if I, too, were dry and barren and 
muddy-witted and " cantankerous," — disposed to 
get my back up, like those other natives of the soil. 

I know this, that the way Mother Earth treats a 
boy shapes out a kind of natural theology for him. 
I fell into Manichean ways of thinking from the 
teaching of my garden exjoeriences. Like other 
boys in the country, I had my patch of ground, to 
which, in the spring-time, I intrusted the seeds fur- 
nished me, with a confident trust in their resurrec- 
tion and glorification in the better world of sum- 
mer. But I soon found that my lines had fallen in 
a place where a vegetable growth had to run the 
gauntlet of as many foes and trials as a Christian 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 251 

pilgrim. Flowers would not blow ; daffodils per- 
ished like criminals in their condemned caps, with- 
out their petals ever seeing daylight ; roses were 
disfigured with monstrous protrusions through their 
very centres, — something that looked like a second 
bud pushing through the middle of the corolla ; 
lettuces and cabbages would not head ; radishes 
knotted themselves until they looked like centena- 
rians' fingers ; and on every stem, on every leaf, 
and both sides of it, and at the root of everything 
that grew, was a professional specialist in the shape 
of grub, caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, whose 
business it was to devour that particular part, and 
help murder the whole attempt at vegetation. Such 
experiences must influence a child born to them. 
A sandy soil, where nothing flourishes but weeds 
and evil beasts of small dimensions, must breed 
different qualities in its human offspring from one 
of those fat and fertile spots which the wit whom I 
have once before quoted described so happily 1 that, 
if I quoted ^he passage, its brilliancy would spoil 
one of my pages, as a diamond breastpin sometimes 
kills the social effect of the wearer, who might have 
passed for a gentleman without it. Your arid patch 
of earth should seem to be the natural birthplace 
of the leaner virtues and the feebler vices, — of 
temperance and the domestic proprieties on the one 
hand, with a tendency to light weights in groceries 

1 Possibly in reference to Douglas Jerrold's mot of a certain 
fertile district: " Tickle it with a hoe and it will laugh with a 
harvest." 



252 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

and provisions, and to clandestine abstraction from 
the person on the other, as opposed to the free hos- 
pitality, the broadly planned burglaries, and the 
largely conceived homicides of our rich Western 
alluvial regions. Yet Nature is never wholly un- 
kind. Economical as she was in my unparadised 
Eden, hard as it was to make some of my floral 
houris unveil, still the damask roses sweetened the 
June breezes, the bladed and plumed flower-de-luces 
unfolded their close-wrapped cones, and larkspurs 
and lupins, lady's delights, — plebeian manifesta- 
tions of the pansy, — self-sowing marigolds, holly- 
hocks, the forest flowers of two seasons, and the 
perennial lilacs and syringas, — all whispered to 
the winds blowing over them that some caressing 
presence was around me. 

Beyond the garden was " the field," a vast do- 
main of four acres or thereabout, by the measure- 
ment of after years, bordered to the north by a 
fathomless chasm, — the ditch the base-ball players 
of the present era jump over ; on the east by un- 
explored territory; on the south by a barren in- 
closure, where the red sorrel proclaimed liberty 
and equality under its drapeau rouge, and succeeded 
in establishing a vegetable commune where all were 
alike, poor, mean, sour, and uninteresting ; and on 
the west by the Common, not then disgraced by 
jealous inclosures, which make it look like a cattle- 
market. Beyond, as I looked round, were the 
Colleges, the meeting-house, the little square mar- 
ket-house, long vanished ; the burial-ground where 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 253 

the dead Presidents stretched their weary bones un- 
der epitaphs stretched out at as full length as their 
subjects ; the pretty church where the gouty tories 
used to kneel on their hassocks ; the district school- 
house, and hard by it Ma'am Hancock's cottage, 
never so called in those days, but rather " ten- 
footer ; " then houses scattered near and far, open 
spaces, the shadowy elms, round hilltops in the 
distance, and over all the great bowl of the sky. 
Mind you, this was the world, as I first knew it ; 
terra veteribus cognita, as Mr. Arrowsmith would 
have called it, if he had mapped the universe of 
my infancy. » 

But I am forgetting the old house again in the 
landscape. The worst of a modern stylish mansion 
is, that it has no place for ghosts. I watched one 
building not long since. It had no proper garret, 
to begin with, only a sealed interval between the 
roof and attics, where a spirit could not be accom- 
modated, unless it were flattened out like Ravel, 
Brother, after the mill-stone had fallen on him. 
There was not a nook or a corner in the whole 
house fit to lodge any respectable ghost, for every 
part was as open to observation as a literary man's 
character and condition, his figure and estate, his 
coat and his countenance, are to his (or her) Bohe- 
mian Majesty on a tour of inspection through his 
(or her) subjects' keyholes. 

Now the old house had wainscots, behind which 
the mice were always scampering and squeaking 
and rattling down the plaster, and enacting family 



254 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

scenes and parlor theatricals. It had a cellar where 
the cold slug clung to the walls, and the misan- 
thropic spider withdrew from the garish day ; where 
the green mould loved to grow, and the long, white 
potato-shoots went feeling along the floor, if haply 
they might find the daylight ; it had great brick 
pillars, always in a cold sweat with holding up the 
burden they had been aching under clay and night 
for a century and more ; it had sepulchral arches 
closed by rough doors that hung on hinges rotten 
with rust, behind which doors, if there was not a 
heap of bones connected with a mysterious disap- 
pearance of long ago, there well might have been, 
for it was just the place to look for them. It had 
a garret, very nearly such a one as it seems to me 
one of us has described in one of his books ; but 
let us look at this one as I can reproduce it from 
memory. It has a flooring of laths with ridges of 
mortar squeezed up between them, which. if you 
tread on you will go to — the Lord have mercy on 
you ! where will you go to ? — the same being 
crossed by narrow bridges of boards, on which you 
may put your feet, but with fear and trembling. 
Above you and around you are beams and joists, 
on some of which you may see, when the light is 
let in, the marks of the conchoidal clippings of the 
broad-axe, showing the rude way in which the tim- 
ber was shaped as it came, full of sap, from the 
neighboring forest. It is a realm of darkness and 
thick dust, and shroud-like cobwebs and dead things 
they wrap in their gray folds. For a garret is 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 255 

like a sea-shore, where wrecks are thrown up and 
slowly go to pieces. There is the cradle which the 
old man you just remember was rocked in ; there 
is the ruin of the bedstead he died on ; that ugly 
slanting contrivance used to be put under his pil- 
low in the days when his breath came hard ; there 
is his old chair with both arms gone, symbol of the 
desolate time when he had nothing earthly left to 
lean on ; there is the large wooden reel which the 
blear-eyed old deacon sent the minister's lady, who 
thanked him graciously, and twirled it smilingly, 
and in "fitting season bowed it out decently to the 
limbo of troublesome conveniences. And there 
are old leather portmanteaus, like stranded por- 
poises, their mouths gaping in gaunt hunger for 
the food with which they used to be gorged to 
bulging repletion ; and old brass andirons, waiting 
until time shall revenge them on their paltry sub- 
stitutes, and they shall have their own again, and 
bring with them the fore-stick and the back-log of 
ancient days ; and the empty churn, with its idle 
dasher, which the Nancys and Phoebes, who have 
left their comfortable places to the Bridgets and 
Norahs, used to handle to good purpose ; and the 
brown, shaky old spinning-wheel, which was run- 
ning, it may be, in the days when they were hang- 
ing the Salem witches. 

Under the dark and haunted garret were attic 
chambers which themselves had histories. On a pane 
in the northeastern chamber may be read these 
names: " John Tracy," " Robert Roberts," " Thomas 



256 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Prince ; " " Stultus " another hand had added. 
When I found these names a few years ago (wrong 
side up, for the window had been reversed), I looked 
at once in the Triennial to find them, for the epithet 
showed that they were probably students. I found 
them, all under the years 1771 and 1773. Does it 
please their thin ghosts thus to be dragged to the 
light of day ? Has " Stultus " forgiven the indignity 
of being thus characterized ? 

The southeast chamber was the Library Hospital. 
Every scholar should have a book infirmary attached 
to his library. There should find a peaceable refuge 
the many books, invalids from their birth, which 
are sent " with the best regards of the Author ; " 
the respected, but unpresentable cripples which have 
lost a cover ; the odd volumes of honored sets which 
go mourning all their days for their lost brother ; 
the school-books which have been so often the sub- 
jects of assault and battery, that they look as if the 
police court must know them by heart ; these, and 
still more the pictured story-books, beginning with 
Mother Goose (which a dear old friend of mine 1 has 
just been amusing his philosophic leisure with turn- 
ing most ingeniously and happily into the tongues 
of Virgil and Homer), will be precious mementos 
by and by, when children and grandchildren come 
along. What would I not give for that dear little 
paper-bound quarto, in large and most legible type, 

1 Nugm Inutiles: (Specimens of Translation.) By J. M. 
Merrick, Jr., B. Sc. Boston, 1874. The translations were previ- 
ously published separately in the Boston Daily Advertiser. 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 257 

on certain pages of which the tender hand that was 
the shield of my infancy had crossed out with deep 
black marks something awful, probably about Bears, 
such as once tare two-and-forty of us little folks for 
making faces, and the very name of which made us 
hide our heads under the bed-clothes. 

I made strange acquaintances in that book in- 
firmary up in the southeast attic. The "Negro 
Plot" at New York helped to implant a feeling in 
me which it took Mr. Garrison a good many years 
to root out. " Thinks I to Myself," an old novel, 
which has been attributed to a famous statesman, 1 
introduced me to a world of fiction which was not 
represented on the shelves of the library proper, 
unless perhaps by " Ccelebs in Search of a Wife," 
or allegories of the bitter tonic class, as the young 
doctor that sits on the other side of the table would 
probably call them. I always, from an early age, 
had a keen eye for a story with a moral sticking 
out of it, and gave it a wide berth, though in my 
later years I have myself written a couple of " med- 
icated novels," as one of my dearest and pleasantest 
old friends wickedly called them, when somebody 
asked her if she had read the last of my printed 
performances. I forgave the satire for the charm- 
ing esprit of the epithet. Besides the works I have 
mentioned, there was an old, old Latin alchemy 
book, with the manuscript annotations of some 
ancient Bosicrucian, in the pages of which I had a 

1 George Canning. The actual author of the novel was an 
English clergyman, Rev. Edward Nares. 
17 



258 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

vague notion that I might find the mighty secret of 
the Lapis Philosophorum y otherwise called Chaos, 
the Dragon, the Green Lion, the Quinta Essentia, 
the Soap of Sages, the Vinegar of Philosophers, 
the Dew of Heavenly Grace, the Egg, the Old Man, 
the Sun, the Moon, and by all manner of odd aliases, 
as I am assured by the plethoric little book before 
me, in parchment covers browned like a meerschaum 
with the smoke of furnaces and the thumbing of 
dead gold -seekers, and the fingering of bony-handed 
book-misers, and the long intervals of dusty slum- 
ber on the shelves of the bouquiniste ; for next 
year it will be three centuries old, and it had already 
seen nine generations of men when I caught its eye 
(AlchemicB Doctrind) and recognized it at pistol-shot 
distance as a prize, among the breviaries and Heures 
and trumpery volumes of the old open-air dealer 
who exposed his treasures under the shadow of St. 
Sulpice. I have never lost my taste for alchemy 
since I first got hold of the Palladium Spagyricum 
of Peter John Faber, and sought — in vain, it is 
true — through its pages for a clear, intelligible, 
and practical statement of how I could turn my 
lead sinkers and the weights of the tall kitchen 
clock into good yellow gold, specific gravity 19.2, 
and exchangeable for whatever I then wanted, and 
for many more things than I was then aware of. 
One of the greatest pleasures of childhood is found 
in the mysteries which it hides from the scepticism 
of the elders, and works up into small mythologies 
of its own. I have seen all this played over again 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 259 

in adult life, — the same delightful bewilderment of 
semi-emotional belief in listening to the gaseous 
promises of this or that fantastic system, that I 
found in the pleasing mirages conjured up for me 
by the ragged old volume I used to pore over in 
the southeast attic-chamber. 

The rooms of the second story, the chambers of 
birth and death, are sacred to silent memories. 

Let us go down to the ground-floor. I should 
have begun with this, but that the historical reminis- 
cences of the old house have been recently told in 
a most interesting memoir by a distinguished student 
of our local history. 1 I retain my doubts about those 
" dents" on the floor of the right-hand room, " the 
study " of successive occupants, said to have been 
made by the butts of the Continental militia's fire- 
locks, but this was the cause the story told me in 
childhood laid them to. That military consultations 
were held in that room when the house was General 
Ward's headquarters, that the Provincial generals 
and colonels and other men of war there planned 
the movement which ended in the fortifying of 
Bunker's Hill, that Warren slept in the house the 
night before the battle, that President Langdon 
went forth from the western door and prayed for 
God's blessing on the men just setting forth on their 
bloody expedition, — all these things have been 
told, and perhaps none of them need be doubted. 
But now for fifty years and more that room has 

1 See Old Cambridge and New, by Thomas C. Amory. Bos- 
ton, 1871. 



260 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

been a meeting-ground for the platoons and compa- 
nies which range themselves at the scholar's word of 
command. Pleasant it is to think that the retreat- 
ing host of books is to give place to a still larger 
army of volumes, which have seen service under 
the eye of a great commander. For here the noble 
collection of him so freshly remembered as our sil- 
ver-tongued orator, our erudite scholar, our honored 
College President, our accomplished statesman, our 
courtly ambassador, are to be reverently gathered 
by the heir of his name, himself not unworthy to be 
surrounded by that august assembly of the wise of 
all ages and of various lands and languages. 1 

Could such a many-chambered edifice have stood 
a century and a half and not have had its passages 
of romance to bequeath their lingering legends to 
the after-time ? There are other names on some 
of the small window-panes, which must have had 
young flesh-and-blood owners, and there is one of 
early date which elderly persons have whispered 
was borne by a fair woman, whose graces made the ' 
house beautiful in the eyes of the youth of that time. 
One especially — you will find the name of Fortes- 
cue Vernon, of the class of 1780, in the Triennial 
Catalogue — was a favored visitor to the old man- 
sion ; but he went over seas, I think they told me, 
and died still young, and the name of the maiden 
which is scratched on the window-pane was never 
changed. I am telling the story honestly, as I re- 
member it, but I may have colored it unconsciously, 

1 William Everett, at that time one of the College Faculty. 



TEE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 261 

and the legendary pane may be broken before this 
for aught I know. At least, I have named no names 
except the beautiful one of the supposed hero of the 
romantic story. 

It was a great happiness to have been born in an 
old house haunted by such recollections, with harm- 
less ghosts walking its corridors, with fields of wav- 
ing grass and trees and singing birds, and that vast 
territory of four or five acres around it to give a 
child the sense that he was born to a noble princi- 
pality. It has been a great pleasure to retain a 
certain hold upon it for so many years ; and since 
in the natural course of things it must at length pass 
into other hands, it is a gratification to see the old 
place making itself tidy for a new" tenant, like some 
venerable dame who is getting ready to entertain a 
neighbor of condition. Not long since a new cap 
of shingles adorned this ancient mother among the 
village — now city — mansions. She has dressed 
herself in brighter colors than she has hitherto worn, 
so they tell me, within the last few days. She has 
modernized her aspects in several ways ; she has 
rubbed bright the glasses through which she looks at 
the Common and the Colleges ; and as the sunsets 
shine upon her through the flickering leaves or the 
wiry spray of the elms I remember from my child- 
hood, they will glorify her into the aspect she wore 
when President Holyoke, father of our long since 
dead centenarian, 1 looked upon her youthful comeli- 
ness. 

1 Dr. Edward Augustus Holyoke, who died in 1829, aged 101 
years. 



262 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

The quiet corner formed by this and the neigh- 
boring residences has changed less than any place 
I can remember. Our kindly, polite, shrewd, and 
humorous old neighbor, who in former days has 
served the town as constable and auctioneer, 1 and 
who bids fair to become the oldest inhabitant of the 
city, was there when I was born, and is living there 
to-day. By and by the stony foot of the great Uni- 
versity will plant itself on this whole territory, and 
the private recollections which clung so tenaciously 
and fondly to the place and its habitations will have 
died with those who cherished them. 

Shall they ever live again in the memory of those 
who loved them here below ? What is this life with- 
out the poor accidents which made it our own, and 
by which we identify ourselves ? Ah me ! I might 
like to be a winged chorister, but still it seems to 
me I should hardly be quite happy if I could not 
recall at will the Old House with the Long Entry, 
and the White Chamber (where I wrote the first 
verses 2 that made me known, with a pencil stans 
pede in uno, pretty nearly), and the Little Parlor, 
and the Study, and the old books in uniforms as 
varied as those of the Ancient and Honorable Ar- 
tillery Company used to be, if my memory serves 
me right, and the front yard with the stars of Beth- 
lehem growing, flowerless, among the grass, and the 
dear faces to be seen no more there or anywhere on 
this earthly place of farewells. 

1 Royall Morse. 

2 Were not these Old Ironsides f 



THE GAMBREL-ROOFED HOUSE. 263 

I have told my story. I do not know what spe- 
cial gifts have been granted or denied me ; but this I 
know, that I am like so many others of my fellow- 
creatures, that when I smile, I feel as if they must ; 
when I cry, I think their eyes fill ; and it always 
seems to me that when I am most truly myself I 
come nearest to tbem and am surest of being list- 
ened to by the brothers and sisters of the larger 
family into which I was born so long ago. I have 
often feared they might be tired of me and what I 
tell them. But then, perhaps, would come a letter 
from some quiet body in some out-of-the-way place, 
which showed me that I had said something which 
another had often felt but never said, or told the 
secret of another's heart in unburdening my own. 
Such evidences that one is in the highway of human 
experience and feeling lighten the footsteps won- 
derfully. So it is that one is encouraged to go on 
writing as long as the world has anything that in- 
terests him, for he never knows how many of his 
fellow-beings he may please or profit, and in how 
many places his name will be spoken as that of a 
friend. 1 

1 A pleasant paper of reminiscences of Cambridge will be 
found in Lowell's Fireside Travels, entitled Cambridge Thirty 
Years Ago. See also Dr. Holmes's Cinders from the Ashes, and 
a short paper on The Old Court-House, by bis brother, John 
Holmes, in The Cambridge of 1776; and T. C. Amoiy's Old 
Cambridge and New, already referred to. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



INTRODUCTION. 

IT has sometimes seemed to the casual observer 
that Lowell has had a divided interest in his 
literary life, passing from poetry to prose, an/d back 
to poetry, as if he found it difficult to determine 
in which direction his power lay. But a closer 
student will remark how very large a proportion 
of Lowell's prose is the record of his studies in 
poetry. His first venture in literature was poetic, 
when he published, not long after graduation from 
college, the volume of poems, A Year's Life ; but the 
opening words of the dedication of that book hint 
at "studies which had been begun long before, and 
have been carried on with unflagging zeal ever 
since. Three years later he published Conversa- 
tions on Some of the Old Poets, a book now out of 
print ; and any one reading the titles of the papers 
which comprise the four volumes of his prose writ- 
ings will readily see how much literature, and 
especially poetic literature, has occupied his at- 
tention. Shakspere, Dryden, Lessing, Rousseau, 
Dante, Spenser, Wordsworth, Milton, Keats, Car- 



INTRODUCTION. 265 

lyle, Percival, Thoreau, Swinburne, Chaucer, Emer- 
son, Pope, — these are the principal subjects of his 
prose, and the range of topics indicates the catho- 
licity of his taste. 

It is more correct, therefore, to regard Lowell as 
primarily a poet, who has published also the results 
of a scholarship which has busied itself chiefly about 
poetry. The comments of a poet upon other poets 
are always of interest, and the first question usually 
asked of a young poet is : What master has he fol- 
lowed ? The answer is generally to be found in the 
verse itself which betrays the influence of other and 
older poets. It is not too much to say that while 
here and there one may trace special influences in 
Lowell's poetry, — as, for example, of Keats, — the 
more noticeable influence is in the converging force 
of the great features of historic poetry, so that there 
is no echo of. any one poet or conscious imitation 
of a poetic school ; but poetry as interpreted by 
the masters of song, in consenting form and spirit, 
reappears in his verse. 

It must not be inferred from this that the source 
of Lowell's poetic inspiration is wholly or in great 
part literary. It is only to say that as a poet he 
has also been a profound student of poetry; the 
great impulses under which poets have been stirred 
have moved him also. These impulses are nature, 
humanity, and literature ; we have noticed briefly 
his studies in literature ; there the immediate result 
is less distinguishable in his poetry than in his prose, 
the great bulk of which, as noted, is composed of 



266 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

critical observations on poetry. For his studies in 
nature we must look most directly to his verse. 
There will be found the evidence of his keen de- 
light, his quick ear and eye, his fine apprehension ; 
and as poetry offers the most ready outlet for en- 
thusiasm in the phenomena of nature, so .Lowell 
the poet has sung of nature rather than written of 
her. But one may find a small section of his essays 
devoted to this field, and the paper which we have 
taken, My Garden Acquaintance, belongs in the 
group. It is included in his volume, My Study 
Windows- a fanciful title which intimates how di- 
vided the poet's attention is between his books and 
nature ; how ready he is to let the fresh air into his 
library, and how, when observing the world from 
within the house, he has carried in his mind the 
thoughts of other lovers of nature. In this group 
also belongs a part of the contents of Fireside 
Travels. 

It was said of the great landscape painter of mod- 
ern days, by his disciple and interpreter, that in all 
his pictures he introduced the human figure not for 
the sake of color, or to hint at proportions, but be- 
cause to him nature was empty without the thought 
of humanity. This third great inspiration has been 
the most prominent in Lowell's poetry, and it has 
been the cause of an important part of his prose 
writings. It is not always to be distinguished from 
the bookish influences which we have noted, for 
in studying poetry he has been alive to the person- 
ality of the poets ; but it finds its strongest expres- 



INTRODUCTION. 267 

sion in a few papers devoted to history and politics, 
such as his papers on Witchcraft, New England 
Two Centuries Ago, A Great Public Character, 
Abraham Lincoln, and certain political essays pub- 
lished in magazines, but not collected in his prose 
works. 

Throughout his prose works run the same char- 
acteristics to be noted in his poetry ; but the form 
of prose is necessarily more favorable to the ex- 
hibition of powers of analysis and of a discursive 
faculty which leads one to illustrate his subject by 
frequent reference to matters of history or art. 
The play upon words also belongs rather to prose 
than to poetry, and in general we may say that the 
rambles of a writer are freer and more natural 
within the unconstrained limits of prose. Thus 
the associative power of Lowell's mind, that gift 
which, abundantly fed by readings enables him to 
suggest indefinitely new combinations of thought, 
is most delightfully displayed in his prose. The 
quickness with which he seizes upon the natural 
suggestions of his subject and the deftness with 
which he weaves them into the changing web of 
his fabric constitute a surprise and delight to the 
reader, and beneath all the subtlety of thought and 
richness of fancy there is a substance of common 
sense and sound judgment which commend them- 
selves to our latest thought upon his work. 

My Garden Acquaintance was first published in 
the Atlantic Almanac for 1869. 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 

One of the most delightful books in my father's 
library was White's Natural History of Selborne. 
For me it has rather gained in charm with years. 
I used to read it without knowing the secret of the 
pleasure I found in it, but as I grow older I begin 
to detect some of the simple expedients of this nat- 
ural magic. Open the book where you will, it 
takes you out of doors. In our broiling July 
weather one can walk out with this genially garru- 
lous Fellow of Oriel and find refreshment instead 
of fatigue. You have no trouble in keeping abreast 
of him as he ambles along on his hobby-horse, now 
pointing to a pretty view, now stopping to watch 
the motions of a bird or an insect, or to bag a speci- 
men for the Honorable Daines Barrington or Mr. 
Pennant. In simplicity of taste and natural refine- 
ment he reminds one of Walton ; in tenderness 
toward what he would have called the brute crea- 
tion, of Cowper. I do not know whether his de- 
scriptions of scenery are good or not, but they have 
made me familiar with his neighborhood. Since I 
first read him, I have walked over some of his fa- 
vorite haunts, but I still see them through his eyes 
rather than by any recollection of actual and per- 
sonal vision. The book has also the delightfulness 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 269 

of absolute leisure. Mr. White seems never to 
have had any harder work to do than to study the 
habits of his feathered fellow-townsfolk, or to watch 
the ripening of his peaches on the wall. His vol- 
umes are the journal of Adam in Paradise, 

" Annihilating all that 's made 
To a green thought in a green shade." 

It is positive rest only to look into that garden of 
his. It is vastly better than to 

" See great Diocletian walk 
In the Salonian garden's noble shade," 

for thither ambassadors intrude to bring with them 
the noises of Rome, while here the world has no 
entrance. No rumor of the revolt of the American 
Colonies seems to have reached him. " The natural 
term of an hog's life " has more interest for him 
than that of an empire. Burgoyne may surrender 
and welcome ; of what consequence is that compared 
with the fact that we can explain the odd tumbling 
of rooks in the air by their turning over " to scratch 
themselves with one claw " ? All the couriers in 
EurOpe spurring rowel-deep make no stir in Mr. 
White's little * Chartreuse ; but the arrival of the 
house-martin a day earlier or later than last year 
is a piece of news worth sending express to all his 
correspondents. 

Another secret charm of this book is its inadver- 
tent humor, so much the more delicious because 
unsuspected by the author. How pleasant is his 

1 La Grande Chartreuse was the original Carthusian monas- 
tery in France, where the most austere privacy was maintained. 



270 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

innocent vanity in adding to the list of the British, 
and still more of the Selbornian, fauna ! I believe 
he would gladly have consented to be eaten by a 
tiger or a crocodile, if by that means the occasional 
presence within the parish limits of either of these 
anthropophagous brutes could have been established. 
He brags of no fine society, but is plainly a little 
elated by " having considerable acquaintance with 
a tame brown owl." Most of us have known our 
share of owls, but few can boast of intimacy with a 
feathered one. The great events of Mr. White's 
life, too, have that disproportionate importance 
which is always humorous. To think of his hands 
having actually been thought worthy (as neither 
Willoughby's nor Ray's were) to hold a stilted 
plover, the Charadrius Mmantopus, with no back 
toe, and therefore " liable, in speculation, to per- 
petual vacillations"! I wonder, by the way, if 
metaphysicians have no hind toes. In 1770 he 
makes the acquaintance in Sussex of " an old family 
tortoise," which had then been domesticated for 
thirty years. It is clear that he fell in love with it 
at first sight. We have no means of tracing the 
growth of his passion ; but in 1780 we find him 
eloping with its object in a post-chaise. " The 
rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused 
it that, when I turned it out in a border, it walked 
twice down to the bottom of my garden." It reads 
like a Court Journal : " Yesterday morning H. R. 
H. the Princess Alice took an airing of half an 
hour on the terrace of Windsor Castle." This tor- 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 271 

toise might have been a member of the Royal So- 
ciety, if he could have condescended to so ignoble 
an ambition. It had but just been discovered that 
a surface inclined at a certain angle with the plane 
of the horizon took more of the sun's rays. The 
tortoise had always known this (though he unosten- 
tatiously made no parade of it), and used accord- 
ingly to tilt himself up against the garden-wall in 
the autumn. He seems to have been more of a 
philosopher than even Mr. White himself, caring 
for nothing but to get under a cabbage-leaf when 
it rained, or the sun was too hot, and to bury him- 
self alive before frost, — a four-footed Diogenes, 
who carried his tub on his back. 

There are moods in which this kind of history is 
infinitely refreshing. These creatures whom we 
affect to look down upon as the drudges of instinct 
are members of a commonwealth whose constitution 
rests on immovable bases. Never any need of re- 
construction there ! They never dream of settling 
it by vote that eight hours are equal to ten, or that 
one creature is as clever as another and no more. 
They do not use their poor wits in regulating God's 
clocks, nor think they cannot go astray so long as 
they carry their guide-board about with them, — a 
delusion we often practise upon ourselves with our 
high and mighty reason, that admirable finger-post 
which points every way and always right. It is 
good for us now and then to converse with a world 
like Mr. White's, where Man is the least important 
of animals. But one who, like me, has always lived 



272 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

in the country and always on the same spot, is 
drawn to his book by other occult sympathies. Do 
we not share his indignation at that stupid Martin 
who had graduated his thermometer no lower than 
4° above zero of Fahrenheit, so that in the coldest 
weather ever known the mercury basely absconded 
into the bulb, and left us to see the victory slip 
through our fingers just as they were closing upon 
it ? No man, I suspect, ever lived long in the 
country without being bitten by these meteorologi- 
cal ambitions. He likes to be hotter and colder, 
to have been more deeply snowed up, to have more 
trees and larger blow down than his neighbors. 
With us descendants of the Puritans especially, 
these weather-competitions supply the abnegated 
excitement of the race-course. Men learn to value 
thermometers of the true imaginative temperament, 
capable of prodigious elations and corresponding 
dejections. The other day (5th July) I marked 98° 
in the shade, my high water mark, higher by one 
degree than I had ever seen it before. I happened 
to meet a neighbor ; as we mopped our brows at 
each other, he told me that he had just cleared 100°, 
and I went home a beaten man. I had not felt the 
heat before, save as a beautiful exaggeration of 
sunshine ; but now it oppressed me with the prosaic 
vulgarity of an oven. What had been poetic in- 
tensity became all at once rhetorical hyperbole. I 
might suspect his thermometer (as indeed I did, 
for we Harvard men are apt to think ill of any 
graduation but our own) ; but it was a poor conso- 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 273 

lation. The fact remained that his herald Mercury, 
standing a-tiptoe, could look down on mine. I 
seem to glimpse something of this familiar weak- 
ness in Mr. White. He, too, has shared in these 
mercurial triumphs and defeats. Nor do I doubt 
that he had a true country-gentleman's interest in 
the weather-cock ; that his first question on coming 
down of a morning was, like Barabas's, 

" Into what quarter peers my halcyon's bill? " 

It is an innocent and healthful employment of 
the mind, distracting one from too continual study 
of himself, and leading him to dwell rather upon 
the indigestions of the elements than his own. 
" Did the wind back round, or go about with the 
sun ? " is a rational question that bears not remotely 
on the making of hay and the prosperity of crops. 
I have little doubt that the regulated observation 
of the vane in many different places, and the in- 
terchange of results by telegraph, would put the 
weather, as it were, in our power, by betraying its 
ambushes before it is ready to give the assault. At 
first sight, nothing seems more drolly trivial than 
the lives of those whose single achievement is to re- 
cord the wind and the temperature three times a day. 
Yet such men are doubtless sent into the world for 
this special end, and perhaps there is no kind of ac- 
curate observation, whatever its object, that has not 
its final use and value for some one or other. It is 
even to be hoped that the speculations of our news- 
paper editors and their myriad correspondents upon 
38 



274 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

the signs of the political atmosphere may also fill 
their appointed place in a well-regulated universe, if 
it be only that of supplying so many more jack-o'- 
lanterns to the future historian. Nay, the observa- 
tions on finance of an M. C. whose sole knowledge 
of the subject has been derived from a life-long 
success in getting a living out of the public without 
paying any equivalent therefor, will perhaps be of 
interest hereafter to some explorer of our cloaca 
maxima, whenever it is cleansed. 

For many years I have been in the habit of not- 
ing down some of the leading events of my embow- 
ered solitude, such as the coming of certain birds 
and the like, — a kind of memoires pour servir, 
after the fashion of White, rather than properly di- 
gested natural history, I thought it not impossible 
that a few simple stories of my winged acquaint- 
ances might be found entertaining by persons of 
kindred taste. 

There is a common notion that animals are better 
meteorologists than men, and I have little doubt that 
in immediate weather-wisdom they have the advan- 
tage of our sophisticated senses (though I suspect 
a sailor or shepherd would be their match), but I 
have seen nothing that leads me to believe their 
minds capable of erecting the horoscope of a whole 
season, and letting us know beforehand whether 
the winter will be severe or the summer rainless. 
I more than suspect that the clerk of the weather 
himself does not always know very long in advance 
whether he is to draw an order for hot or cold, dry 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 275 

or moist, and the musquash is scarce likely to be 
wiser. I have noted but two days' difference in the 
coming of the song-sparrow between a very early 
and a very backward spring. This very year I 
saw the linnets at work thatching, just before a 
snow-storm which covered the ground several inches 
deep for a number of days. They struck work and 
left us for a while, no doubt in search of food. 
Birds frequently perish from sudden changes in- our 
whimsical spring weather of which they had no 
foreboding. More than thirty years ago, a cherry- 
tree, then in full bloom, near my window, was cov- 
ered with humming-birds benumbed by a fall of 
mingled rain and snow, which probably killed many 
of them. It should seem that their coming was 
dated by the height of the sun, which betrays them 
into unthrifty matrimony ; 

" So priketh hem Nature in bir corages ; " 1 

but their going is another matter. The chimney- 
swallows leave us early, for example, apparently so 
soon as their latest fledglings are firm enough of 
wing to attempt the long rowing-match that is be- 
fore them. On the other hand, the wild-geese prob- 
ably do not leave the North till they are frozen 
out, for I have heard their bugles sounding south- 
ward so late as the middle of December. What 
may be called local migrations are doubtless dictated 
by the chances of food. I have once been visited 
by large flights of cross-bills ; and whenever the 
1 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Prologue, v. 11. 



276 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

snow lies long and deep on the ground, a flock of 
cedar-birds comes in midwinter to eat the berries 
on my hawthorns. I have never been quite able 
to fathom the local, or rather geographical partial- 
ities of birds. Never before this summer (1870) 
have the king-birds, handsomest of flycatchers, built 
in my orchard ; though I always know where to 
find them within half a mile. The rose-breasted 
grosbeak has been a familiar bird in Brookline 
(three miles away), yet I never saw one here till 
last July, when I found a female busy among my 
raspberries and surprisingly bold. I hope she was 
prospecting with & view to settlement in our garden. 
She seemed, on the whole, to think well of my 
fruit, and I would gladly plant another bed if it 
would help to win over so delightful a neighbor. 

The return of the robin is commonly announced 
by the newspapers, like that of eminent or noto- 
rious people to a watering-place, as the first au- 
thentic notification of spring. And such his ap- 
pearance in the orchard and garden undoubtedly is. 
But, in spite of his name of migratory thrush, he 
stays with us all winter, and I have seen him when 
the thermometer marked 15 degrees below zero of 
Fahrenheit, armed impregnably within, 1 like Emer- 
son's Titmouse, and as cheerful as he. The robin 
has a bad reputation among people who do not 
value themselves less for being fond of cherries. 

1 " For well the soul, if stout within, 
Can arm impregnably the skin." 

The Titmouse, vv. 75, 76. 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 277 

There is, I admit, a spice of vulgarity in him, and 
his song is rather of the Bloomfield sort, too largely 
ballasted with prose. His ethics are of the Poor 
Richard school, and the main chance which calls 
forth all his energy is altogether of the belly. He 
never has those fine intervals of lunacy into which 
his cousins, the catbird and the mavis, are apt to 
fall. But for a' that and twice as muckle 's a' that, 
I would not exchange him for all the cherries that 
ever came out of Asia Minor. With whatever 
faults, he has not wholly forfeited that superiority 
which belongs to the children of nature. He has 
a finer taste in fruit than could be distilled from 
many successive committees of the Horticultural So- 
ciety, and he eats with a relishing gulp not inferior 
to Dr. Johnson's. He feels and freely exercises his 
right of eminent domain. His is the earliest mess 
of green peas ; his all the mulberries I had fancied 
mine. But if he get also the lion's share of the 
raspberries, he is a great planter, and sows those 
wild ones in the woods that solace the pedestrian, 
and give a momentary calm even to the jaded vic- 
tims of the White Hills. He keeps a strict eye 
over one's fruit, and knows to a shade of purple 
when your grapes have cooked long enough in the 
sun. During the severe drought a few years ago 
the robins wholly vanished from my garden. I 
neither saw nor heard one for three weeks. Mean- 
while a small foreign grape-vine, rather shy of 
bearing, seemed to find the dusty air congenial, 
and, dreaming perhaps of its sweet Argos across 



278 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

the sea, decked itself with a score or so of fair 
bunches. I watched them from day to day till 
they should have secreted sugar enough from the 
sunbeams, and at last made up my mind that I 
would celebrate my vintage the next morning. But 
the robins, too, had somehow kept note of them. 
They must have sent out spies, as did the Jews 
into the promised land, before I was stirring. 
When I went with my basket at least a dozen of 
these winged vintagers bustled out from among the 
leaves, and alighting on the nearest trees inter- 
changed some shrill remarks about me of a de- 
rogatory nature. They had fairly sacked the vine. 
Not Wellington's veterans made cleaner work of a 
Spanish town ; not Federals or Confederates were 
ever more impartial in the confiscation of neutral 
chickens. I was keeping my grapes a secret to 
surprise the fair Fidele with, but the robins made 
them a profounder secret to her than I had meant. 
The tattered remnant of a single bunch was all my 
harvest-home. How paltry it looked at the bottom 
of my basket, — as if a humming-bird had laid her 
egg in an eagle's nest ! I could not help laughing ; 
and the robins seemed to join heartily in the mer- 
riment. There was a native grape-vine close by, 
blue with its less refined abundance, but my cun- 
ning thieves preferred the foreign flavor. Could I 
tax them with want of taste ? 

The'robins are not good solo singers, but their 
chorus, as, like primitive fire-worshippers, they hail 
the return of light and warmth to the world, is 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 279 

unrivalled. There are a hundred singing like one. 
They are noisy enough then, and sing, as poets 
should, with no afterthought. But when they come 
after cherries to the tree near my window, they muffle 
their voices, and their faint pip, pip, pop ! sounds 
far away at the bottom of the garden, where they 
know I shall not suspect them of robbing the great 
black-walnut of its bitter-rinded store. 1 They are 
feathered Pecksniffs, to be sure, but then how 
brightly their breasts, that look rather shabby in the 
sunlight,' shine in a rainy day against the dark green 
of the fringe-tree ! After they have pinched and 
shaken all the life of an earthworm, as Italian cooks 
pound all the spirit out of a steak, and then gulped 
him, they stand up in honest self-confidence, expand 
their red waistcoats with the virtuous air of a lobby 
member, and outface you with an eye that calmly 
challenges inquiry. "Do /look like a bird that 
knows the flavor of raw vermin ? I throw myself 
upon a jury of my peers. Ask any robin if he ever 
ate anything less ascetic than the frugal berry of 
the juniper, and he will answer that his vow for- 
bids him." Can such an open bosom cover such 
depravity ? Alas, yes ! I have no doubt his breast 
was redder at that very moment with the blood 
of my raspberries. On the whole, he is a doubtful 
friend in the garden. He makes his dessert of all 
kinds of berries, and is not averse from early pears. 

1 The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one of 
the sweetest sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way 
with the most beguiling mockery of distance. J. R- L. 



280 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

But when we remember how omnivorous he is, 
eating his own weight in an incredibly short time, 
and that Nature seems exhaustless in her invention 
of new insects hostile to vegetation, perhaps we 
may reckon that he does more good than harm. 
For my own part, I would rather have his cheer- 
fulness and kind neighborhood than many berries. 

For his cousin, the catbird, I have a still warmer 
regard. Always a good singer, he sometimes nearly 
equals the brown thrush, and has the merit of keep- 
ing up his music later in the evening than ■ any bird 
of my familiar acquaintance. Ever since I can re- 
member, a pair of them have built in a gigantic 
syringa, near our front door, and I have known the 
male to sing almost uninterruptedly during the even- 
ings of early summer till twilight duskened into 
dark. They differ greatly in vocal talent, but all 
have a delightful way of crooning over, and, as it 
were, rehearsing their song in an undertone, which 
makes their nearness always unobtrusive. Though 
there is the most trustworthy witness to the imita- 
tive propensity of this bird, I have only once, dur- 
ing an intimacy of more than forty years, heard 
him indulge it. In that case, the imitation was by 
no means so close as to deceive, but a free reproduc- 
tion of the notes of some other birds, especially of 
the oriole, as a kind of variation in his own song. 
The catbird is as shy as the robin is vulgarly famil- 
iar. Only when his nest or his fledglings are ap- 
proached does he become noisy and almost aggres- 
sive. I have known him to station his young in a 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 281 

thick cornel-bush on the edge of the raspberry-bed, 
after the fruit began to ripen, and feed them there 
for a week or more. In such cases he shows none 
of that conscious guilt which makes the robin con- 
temptible. On the contrary, he will maintain his 
post in the thicket, and sharply scold the intruder 
who ventures to steal his berries. After all, his claim 
is only for tithes, while the robin will bag your en- 
tire corp if he get a chance. 

Dr. Watts's statement that " birds in their little 
nests agree," like too many others intended to form 
the infant mind, is very far from being true. On 
the contrary, the most peaceful relation of the dif- 
ferent species to each other is that of armed neutral- 
ity. They are very jealous of neighbors. A few 
years ago I was much interested in the housebuild- 
ing of a pair of summer yellow-birds. They had 
chosen a very pretty site near the top of a tall 
white lilac, within easy eye-shot of a chamber win- 
dow. A very pleasant thing it was to see their 
little home growing with mutual help, to watch their 
industrious skill interrupted only by little flirts and 
snatches of endearment, frugally cut short by the 
common-sense of the tiny housewife. They had 
brought their work nearly to an end, and had 
already begun to line it with fern-down, the gather- 
ing of which demanded more distant journeys and 
longer absences. But, alas ! the syringa, immemo- 
rial manor of the catbirds, was not more than 
twenty feet away, and these " giddy neighbors " 
had, as it appeared, been all along jealously watch- 



282 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

f ul, though silent, witnesses of what they deemed an 
intrusion of squatters. No sooner were the pretty 
mates fairly gone for a new load of lining, tnan 

" To their unguarded nest these weasel Scots 
Came stealing." 1 

Silently they flew back and forth, each giving a 
vengeful dab at the nest in passing. They did not 
fall-to and deliberately destroy it, for they might 
have been caught at their mischief. As it was, 
whenever the yellow-birds came back, their ene- 
mies were hidden in their own sight-proof bush. 
Several times their unconscious victims repaired 
damages, but at length, after counsel taken together, 
they gave it up. Perhaps, like other unlettered 
folk, they came to the conclusion that the Devil 
was in it, and yielded to the invisible persecution 
of witchcraft. 

The robins, by constant attacks and annoyances, 
have succeeded in driving off the blue-jays who used 
to build in our pines, their gay colors and quaint, 
noisy ways, making them welcome and amusing 
neighbors. I once had the chance of doing a kind- 
ness to a household of them, which they received 
with very friendly condescension. I had had my 
eye for some time upon a nest, and was puzzled by 
a constant fluttering of what seemed full-grown 
wings in it whenever I drew nigh. At last I climbed 
the tree, in spite of angry protests from the old 
birds against my intrusion. The mystery had a 
very simple solution. In building the nest, a long 
1 Shakspere: King Henry V., act i. scene 2. 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 283 

piece of packthread had been somewhat loosely 
woven in. Three of the young had contrived to 
entangle themselves in it, and had become full- 
grown without being able to launch themselves 
upon the air. One was unharmed ; another had so 
tightly twisted the cord about its shank that one 
foot was curled up and seemed paralyzed ; the 
third, in its struggles to escape, had sawn through 
the flesh of the thigh and so much harmed itself 
that I thought it humane to put an end to its 
misery. When I took out my knife to cut their 
hempen bonds, the heads of the family seemed to 
divine my friendly intent. Suddenly ceasing their 
cries and threats, they perched quietly within reach 
of my hand, and watched me in my work of manu- 
mission. This, owing to the fluttering terror of the 
prisoners, was an affair of some delicacy ; but ere- 
long I was rewarded by seeing one of them fly 
away to a neighboring tree, while the cripple, mak- 
ing a parachute of his wings, came lightly to the 
ground, and hopped off as well as he could with one 
leg, obsequiously waited on by his elders. A week 
later I had the satisfaction of meeting him in the 
pine-walk, in good spirits, and already so far re- 
covered as to be able to balance himself with the 
lame foot. I have no doubt that in his old age he 
accounted for his lameness by some handsome story 
of a wound received at the famous Battle of the 
Pines, when our tribe, overcome by numbers, was 
driven from its ancient camping-ground. Of late 
years the jays have visited us only at intervals ; 



284 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

and in winter their bright plumage; set off by the 
snow, and their cheerful cry, are especially welcome. 
They would have furnished iEsop with a fable, for 
the feathered crest in which they seem to take so 
much satisfaction is often their fatal snare. Coun- 
try boys make a hole with their finger in the snow- 
crust just large enough to admit the jay's head, 
and, hollowing it out somewhat beneath, bait it with 
a few kernels of corn. The crest slips easily into 
the trap, but refuses to be pulled out again, and he 
who came to feast remains a prey. 

Twice have the crow-blackbirds attempted a set- 
tlement in my pines, and twice have the robins, who 
claim a right of preemption, so successfully played 
the part of border-ruffians as to drive them away, — 
to my great regret, for they are the best substitute 
we have for rooks. At Shady Hill 1 (now, alas ! 
empty of its so long-loved household) they build by 
hundreds, and nothing can be more cheery than their 
creaking clatter (like a convention of -old-fashioned 
tavern-signs) as they gather at evening to debate in 
mass meeting their .windy politics, or to gossip at 
their tent-doors over the events of the day. Their 
port is grave, and their stalk across the turf as 
martial as that of a second-rate ghost in Hamlet. 
They never meddled with my corn, so far as I could 
discover. 

For a few years I had crows, but their nests are 
an irresistible bait for boys, and their settlement 

i The home of the Nortons, in Cambridge, who were at the 
me of this paper in Europe. 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 285 

was broken up. They grew so wonted as to throw 
off a great part of their shyness, and to tolerate my 
near approach. One very hot day I stood for some 
time within twenty feet of a mother and three 
children, who sat on an elm bough over my head 
gasping in the sultry air, and holding their wings 
half-spread for coolness. All birds during the pair- 
ing season become more or less sentimental, and 
murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the 
grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their ha- 
bitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover, and 
to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper 
Saint Preux * standard, has something the effect of a 
Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Yet there 
are few things to my ear more melodious than his 
caw of a clear winter morning as it drops to you 
filtered through five hundred fathoms of crisp blue 
air. The hostility of all smaller birds makes the 
moral character of the crow, for all his deaconlike 
demeanor and garb, somewhat questionable. He 
could never sally forth without insult. The golden 
robins, especially, would chase him as far as I could 
follow with my eye, making him duck clumsily to 
avoid their importunate bills. I do not believe, 
however, that he robbed any nests hereabouts, for 
the refuse of the gas-works, which, in our free-and- 
easy community, is allowed to poison the river, 
supplied him with dead alewives in abundance. I 
used to watch him making his periodical visits to 
the salt-marshes and coming back with a fish in his 
1 See Eousseau's La Nouvelle Heloise. 



286 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

beak to his young savages, who, no doubt, like it in 
that condition which makes it savory to the Kana- 
kas and other corvine races of men. 

Orioles are in great plenty with me. I have seen 
seven males flashing about the garden at once. A 
merry crew of them swing their hammocks from the 
pendulous boughs. During one. of these later years, 
when the canker-worms. stripped our elms as bare as 
winter, these birds went to the trouble of rebuilding 
their unroofed nests, and chose for the purpose trees 
which are safe from those swarming vandals, such as 
the ash and the button-wood. One year a pair (dis- 
turbed, I suppose, elsewhere) built a second nest in 
an elm within a few yards of the house. My friend, 
Edward E. Hale, told me once that the oriole re- 
jected from his web all strands of brilliant color, 
and I thought it a striking example of that instinct 
of concealment noticeable in many birds, though it 
should seem in this instance that the nest was amply 
protected by its position from all marauders but owls 
and squirrels. Last year, however, I had the full- 
est proof that Mr. Hale was mistaken. A pair of 
orioles built on the lowest trailer of a weeping elm, 
which hung within ten feet of our drawing-room 
window, and so low that I could reach it from the 
ground. The nest was wholly woven and felted 
with ravellings of woollen carpet in which scarlet 
predominated. Would the same thing have hap- 
pened in the woods ? Or did the nearness of a hu- 
man dwelling perhaps, give the birds a greater feel- 
ing of security ? They are very bold, by the way, in 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 287 

quest of cordage, and I have often watched them 
stripping the fibrous bark from a honeysuckle grow- 
ing over the very door. But, indeed, all my birds 
look upon me as if I were a mere tenant at will, 
and they were landlords. With shame I confess it, 
I have been bullied even by a humming-bird. This 
spring, as I was cleansing a pear-tree of its lichens, 
one of these little zigzagging blurs came purring to- 
ward me, couching his long bill like a lance, his 
throat sparkling with angry fire, to warn me off from 
a Missouri-currant whose honey he was sipping. 
And many a time he has driven me out of a flower- 
bed. This summer, by the way, a pair of these 
winged emeralds fastened their mossy acorn-cup 
upon a bough of the same elm which the orioles had 
enlivened the year before. We watched all their 
proceedings from the window through an opera- 
glass, and saw their two nestlings grow from black 
needles with a tuft of down at the lower end, till 
they whirled away on their first short experimental 
flights. They became strong of wing in a surpris- 
ingly short time, and I never saw them or the male 
bird after, though the female was regular as usual 
in her visits to our petunias and verbenas. I do not 
think it ground enough for a generalization, but in 
the many times when I watched the old birds feeding 
their young, the mother always alighted, while the 
father as uniformly remained upon the wing. 

The bobolinks are generally chance visitors, 
tinkling through the garden in blossoming- time, but 
this year, owing to the long rains early in the sea- 



288 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

son, their favorite meadows were flooded, and they 
were driven to the upland. So I had a pair of them 
domiciled in my grass field. The male used to perch 
in an apple-tree, then in full bloom, and, while I 
stood perfectly still close by, he would circle away, 
quivering round the entire field of five acres, with 
no break in his song, and settle down again among 
the blossoms, to be hurried away almost immediately 
by a new rapture of music. He had the volubility 
of an Italian charlatan at a fair, and, like him, ap- 
peared to be proclaiming the merits of some quack 
remedy. Opodeldoc-opodeldoc-try- Doctor-Lincoln' s- 
opodeldoc ! he seemed to repeat over and over again, 
with a rapidity that would have distanced the deft- 
est-tongued Figaro that ever rattled. I remember 
Count Gurowski saying once, with that easy supe- 
riority of knowledge about this country which is the 
monopoly of foreigners, that we had no singing- 
birds ! Well, well, Mr. Hepworth'Dixon * has found 
the typical America in Oneida and Salt Lake City. 
Of course, an intelligent European is the best judge 
of these matters. The truth is there are more 
singing-birds in Europe because there are fewer 
forests. These songsters love the neighborhood of 
man because hawks and owls are rarer, while their 
own food is more abundant. Most people seem to 
think, the more trees, the more birds. Even Chat- 
eaubriand, who first tried the primitive-forest-cure, 
and whose description of the wilderness in its imag- 
inative effects is unmatched, fancies the " people of 
i In his book of travels, New America. 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 289 

the air singing their hymns to him." So far as my 
own observation goes, the farther one penetrates 
the sombre solitudes of the woods, the more seldom 
does he hear the voice of any singing-bird. In spite 
of Chateaubriand's minuteness of detail, in spite of 
that marvellous reverberation of the decrepit tree 
falling of its own weight, which he was the first to 
notice, I cannot help doubting whether he made his 
way very deep into the wilderness. At any rate, 
in" a letter to Fontanes, written in 1804, he speaks 
of mes chevaux paissant a quelque distance. To be 
sure Chateaubriand was apt to mount the high horse, 
and this may have been but an afterthought of the 
grand seigneur, but certainly one would not make 
much headway on horseback toward the druid fast- 
nesses of the primaeval pine. 

The bobolinks build in considerable numbers in 
a meadow within a quarter of a mile of us. A 
houseless lane passes through the midst of their 
camp, and in clear westerly weather, at the right 
season, one may hear a score of them singing at 
once. When they are breeding, if I chance to pass, 
one of the male birds always accompanies me like 
a constable, flitting from post to post of the rail- 
fence, with a short note of reproof continually re- 
peated, till I am fairly out of the neighborhood. 
Then he will swing away into the air and run down 
the wind, gurgling music without stint over the 
unheeding tussocks of meadow-grass and dark 
clumps of bulrushes that mark his domain. 

We have no bird whose song will match the 



290 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

nightingale's in compass, none whose note is so 
rich as that of the European blackbird ; but for 
mere rapture I have never heard the bobolink's 
rival. But his opera-season is a short one. The 
ground and tree sparrows are our most constant 
performers. It is now late in August, and one of 
the latter sings every day and all day long in the 
garden. Till within a fortnight, a pair of indigo- 
birds would keep up their lively duo for an hour 
together. While I write, I hear an oriole gay as 
in June, and the plaintive may-be of the goldfinch 
tells me he is stealing my lettuce-seeds. I know 
not what the experience of others may have been, 
but the only bird I have ever heard sing in the 
night has been the chip-bird. I should say he sang 
about as often during the darkness as cocks crow. 
One can hardly help fancying that he sings in his 
dreams. 

" Father of light, what sunnie seed, 
What glance of day hast thou confined 
Into this bird ? To all the breed 
This busie ray thou hast assigned ; 
Their magnetism works all night, 
And dreams of Paradise and light." 

On second thought, I remember to have heard the 
cuckoo strike the hours nearly all night with the 
regularity of a Swiss clock. 

The dead limbs of our elms, which I spare to 
that end, bring us the flicker every summer, and 
almost daily I hear his wild scream and laugh close 
at hand, himself invisible. He is a shy bird, but a 
few days ago I had the satisfaction of studying him 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 291 

through the blinds as he sat on a tree within a few 
feet of me. Seen so near and at rest, he makes 
good his claim to the title of pigeon-woodpecker. 
Lumberers have a notion that he is harmful to 
timber, digging little holes through the bark to en- 
courage the settlement of insects. The regular 
rings of such perforations which one may see in 
almost any apple-orchard seem to give some proba- 
bility to this theory. Almost every season a soli- 
tary quail visits us, and, unseen among the currant- 
bushes, calls Bob White, Bob White, as if he were 
playing at hide-and-seek with that imaginary being. 
A rarer visitant is the turtle-dove, whose pleasant 
coo (something like the muffled crow of a cock 
from a coop covered with snow) I have sometimes 
heard, and whom I once had the good luck to see 
close by me in the mulberry-tree. The wild-pigeon, 
once numerous, I have not seen for many years. 1 
Of savage birds, a hen-hawk now and then quarters 
himself upon us for a few days, sitting sluggish in 
a tree after a surfeit of poultry. One of them once 
offered me a near shot from my study-window one 
drizzly day for several hours. But it was Sunday, 
and I gave him the benefit of its gracious truce of 
God. 

Certain birds have disappeared from our neigh- 
borhood within my memory. I remember when 
the whippoorwill could be heard in Sweet Auburn. 
The night-hawk, once common, is now rare. The 
brown thrush has moved farther up country. For 

1 They made their appearance again this summer (1870). — 
J.E.L. 



8958 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

years I have not seen or heard any of the larger 
owls, whose hooting was one of my boyish terrors. 
The cliff-swallow, strange emigrant, that eastward 
takes his way, has come and gone again in my time. 
The bank-swallows, wellnigh innumerable during 
my boyhood, no longer frequent the crumbly cliff 
of the gravel-pit by the river. The barn-swallows, 
which once swarmed in our barn, flashing through 
the dusty sun-streaks of the mow, have been gone 
these many years. My father would lead me out 
to see them gather on the roof, and take counsel 
before their yearly migration, as Mr. White used 
to see them at Selborne. Eheu fugaces ! Thank 
fortune, the swift still glues his nest, and rolls his 
distant thunders night and day in the wide-throated 
chimneys, still sprinkles the evening air with his 
merry twittering. The populous heronry in Fresh 
Pond meadows has wellnigh broken up, but still a 
pair or two haunt the old home, as the gypsies of 
Ellangowan their ruined huts, and every evening 
fly over us riverwards, clearing their throats with a 
hoarse hawk as they go, and, in cloudy weather, 
scarce higher than the tops of the chimneys. Some 
times I have known one to alight in one of our 
trees, though for what purpose I never could divine. 
Kingfishers have sometimes puzzled me in the same 
way, perched at high noon in a pine, springing their 
watchman's rattle when they flitted away from my 
curiosity, and seeming to shove their top-heavy 
heads along as a man does a wheelbarrow. 

Some birds have left us, I suppose, because the 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 293 

country is growing less wild. I once found a sum- 
mer duck's nest within a quarter of a mile of our 
house, but such a trouvaille would be impossible 
now as Kidd's treasure. And yet the mere taming 
of the neighborhood does not quite satisfy me as an 
explanation. Twenty years ago, on my way to 
bathe in the river, I saw every day a brace of wood- 
cock, on the miry edge of a spring within a few rods 
of a house, and constantly visited by thirsty cows. 
There was no growth of any kind to conceal them, 
and yet these ordinarily shy birds were almost as 
indifferent to my passing as common poultry would 
have been. Since bird-nesting has become scien- 
tific, and dignified itself as oology, that, no doubt, 
is partly to blame for some of our losses. But 
some old friends are constant. Wilson's thrush 
comes every year to remind me of that most poetic 
of ornithologists. He flits before me through the 
pine-walk like the very genius of solitude. A pair 
of pewees have built immemorially on a jutting 
brick in the arched entrance to the ice-house. Al- 
ways on the same brick, and never more than a 
single pair, though two broods of five each are 
raised there every summer. How do they settle 
their claim to the homestead ? By what right of 
primogeniture ? Once the children of a man em- 
ployed about the place oblogized the nest, and the 
pewees left us for a year or two. I felt towards 
those boys as the messmates of the Ancient Mari- 
ner did towards him after he had shot the albatross. 1 
1 In Coleridge's poem of that name. 



294 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

But the pewees came back at last, and one of them 
is now on his wonted perch, so near my window 
that I can hear the click of his bill as he snaps a fly 
on the wing with the unerring precision a stately 
Trasteverina shows in the capture of her smaller 
deer. The pewee is the first bird to pipe up in the 
morning ; and, during the early summer he pre- 
ludes his matutinal ejaculation of pewee with a slen- 
der whistle, unheard at any other time. He sad- 
dens with the season, and, as summer declines, he 
changes his note to eheu, pewee/ as if in lamen- 
tation. Had he been an Italian bird, Ovid would 
have had a plaintive tale to tell about him. He is 
so familiar as often to pursue a fly through the open 
window into my library. 

There is something inexpressibly dear to me in 
these old friendships of a lifetime. There is scarce 
a tree of mine but has had, at some time or other, 
a happy homestead among its boughs, to which I 

cannot say, 

" Many light hearts and wings, 
Which now be dead, lodged in thy living bowers." 

My walk under the pines would lose half its sum- 
mer charm were I to miss that shy anchorite, the 
Wilson's thrush, nor hear in haying-time the metal- 
lic ring of his song, that justifies his rustic name of 
scythe-whet. I protect my game as jealously as an 
English squire. If anybody had oologized a certain 
cuckoo's nest I know of (I have a pair in my gar- 
den every year), it would have left me a sore place 
in my mind for weeks. I love to bring these abo- 



MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 295 

rigines back to the mansuetude they showed to the 
early voyagers, and before (forgive the involuntary 
pun) they had grown accustomed to man and knew 
his savage ways. And they repay your kindness 
with a sweet familiarity too delicate ever to breed 
contempt. I have made a Penn-treaty with them, 
preferring that to the Puritan way with the na- 
tives, which converted them to a little Hebraism 
and a great deal of Medford rum. If they will not 
come near enough to me (as most of them will), I 
bring them close with an opera-glass, — a much 
better weapon than a gun. I would not, if I could, 
convert them from their pretty pagan ways. The 
only one I sometimes have savage doubts about is 
the red squirrel. I think he oologizes. I know he 
eats cherries (we counted five of them at one time 
in a single tree, the stones pattering down like the 
sparse hail that preludes a storm), and that he 
gnaws off the small end of pears to get at the seeds. 
He steals the corn from under the noses of my 
poultry. But what would you have ? He will 
come down upon the limb of the tree I am lying 
under till he is within a yard of me. He and his 
mate will scurry up and down the great black- 
walnut for my diversion, chattering like monkeys. 
Can I sign Jiis death-warrant who has tolerated me 
about his grounds so long ? Not I. Let them 
steal, and welcome. I am sure I should, had I had 
the same bringing up and the same temptation. 
As for the birds, I do not believe there is one of 
them but does more good than harm ; and of how 
many featherless bipeds can this be said ? 



HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 



INTRODUCTION. 

HHHERE died at Concord, Massachusetts, in the 
-*- year 1862, a man of forty-five who, if one were 
to take his word for it, need never have gone out 
of the little village of Concord to see all that was 
worth seeing in the world. Lowell, in his My Gar- 
den Acquaintance, reminds the reader of Gilbert 
White, who, in his Natural History of Selborne, gave 
minute details of a lively world found within the 
borders of a little English parish. Alphonse Karr, 
a French writer, has written a book which contracts 
the limit still further in A Journey round my Gar- 
den, but neither of these writers so completely iso- 
lated themselves from the outside world as did 
Thoreau, who had a collegiate education at Har- 
vard, made short journeys to Cape Cod, Maine, and 
Canada, acted for a little while as tutor dn a family 
on Staten Island, but spent the best part of his life 
as a looker-on in Concord, and during two years of 
the time lived a hermit on the shores of Walden 
Pond. He made his living, as the phrase goes, by 
the occupation of a land surveyor, but he followed 



INTRODUCTION. 297 

the profession only when it suited his convenience. 
He did not marry; he never went to church; he 
never voted ; he refused to pay taxes ; he sought no 
society ; he declined companions when they were 
in his way, and when he had anything to say in 
public, went about from door to door and invited 
people to come to a hall to hear him deliver his 
word. 

That he had something to say to the world at 
large is pretty evident from the books which he has 
left, and it is intimated that the unpublished records 
of his observation and reflection are more extensive. 
Thus far his published writings are contained in 
seven volumes. The first in appearance was A 
Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers. It was 
published in 1849 and built upon the adventures of 
himself and brother ten years before, when, in a 
boat of their own construction, they had made their 
way from Concord down the Concord River to the 
Merrimac, up that to its source, and back to the 
starting point. It will readily be seen that such an 
excursion would not yield a bookful of observation, 
and though Thoreau notes in it many trivial inci- 
dents, a great part of the contents is in the reflec- 
tions which he makes from day to day. He comes 
to the little river with its sparse border of popula- 
tion and meagre history, and insists upon measur- 
ing antiquity and fame by it. All of his reading he 
tests by the measure of this stream, and undertakes 
to show that the terms, big and little, are very much 
misapplied, and that here on this miniature scale one 



298 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

may read all that is worth knowing in life. His 
voyage is treated with the gravity which one might 
use in recording a journey to find the sources of the 
Nile. 

Between the date of the journey and the publica- 
tion of the book, Thoreau was engaged upon an 
experiment still more illustrative of his creed of in- 
dividuality. In 1845 he built a hut in the woods 
by Walclen Pond, and for two years lived a self- 
contained life there. It was not altogether a lonely 
life. He was within easy walking distance of Con- 
cord village, and the novelty of his housekeeping 
attracted many visitors, while his friends who valued 
his conversation sought him out in his hermitage. 
Besides and beyond this Thoreau had a genius for 
intercourse with humbler companions. There have 
been few instances in history of such perfect under- 
standing as existed between him and the lower or- 
ders of creation. It has been said of him : " Every 
fact which occurs in the bed [of the Concord River], 
on the banks, or in the air over it ; the fishes, and 
their spawning and nests, their manners, their food ; 
the shad-flies which fill the air on a certain evening 
once a year, and which are snapped at by the fishes 
so ravenously that many of these die of repletion ; 
the conical heaps of small stones on the river- 
shallows, one of which heaps will sometime overfill 
a cart, — these heaps the huge nests of small fishes ; 
the birds which frequent the stream, heron, duck, 
sheldrake, loon, osprey ; the snake, muskrat, otter, 
woodchuck, and fox on the banks ; the turtle, frog, 



INTRODUCTION. 299 

hyla, and cricket which made the banks vocal, — 
were all known to him, and, as it were,"townsmen 
and fellow-creatures. . . . . His power of observa- 
tion seemed to indicate additional senses. He saw 
as with a microscope, heard as with ear-trumpet, 
and his memory was a photographic register of all 
he saw and heard His intimacy with ani- 
mals suggested what Thomas Fuller records of 
Butler the apiologist, that ' either he had told the 
bees things or the bees had told him ; ' snakes coiled 
round his leg ; the fishes swam into his hand, and 
he took them out of the water ; he pulled the wood- 
chuck out of its hole by the tail, and took the foxes 
under his protection from the hunters." * 

Walden, published in 1854, is the record of 
Thoreau's life in the woods, and inasmuch as that 
life was not exhausted in the bare provision against 
bodily wants, nor in the observation even of what 
lay under the eye and ear, but was busied about 
the questions which perplex all who would give an 
account of themselves, the record mingles common 
fact and personal experience, the world without 
and the world within. Thoreau records what he 
sees and hears in the woods, but these sights and 
sounds are the texts for sermons upon human life. 
He undertook to get at the elementary conditions 
of living, and to strip himself as far as he could of 
all that was unnecessary. In doing this he discov- 
ered many curious and ingenious things, and the 
unique method which he took was pretty sure to 
1 Emerson's Biographical Sketch. 



300 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

give him glimpses of life not seen by others. But 
the method had its disadvantages and chiefly this, 
that it was against the common order of things, 
and therefore the results reached could not be re- 
lied upon as sound and wholesome. 

The great value of Walden, and indeed of all 
Thoreau's books, is not in the philosophy, which is 
often shrewd and often strained and arbitrary, but 
in the disclosure made of the common facts of the 
world about one. He used to say ; " I think noth- 
ing is to be hoped from you, if this bit of mould 
under your feet is not sweeter to you to eat than 
any other in this world, or in any world ; " and the 
whole drift of his writing is toward the develop- 
ment of the individual in the place where he hap- 
pens to be. Thoreau's protesting attitude, and the 
stout resistance which he made to all influences 
about him except the common ones of nature, betray 
themselves in the style of his writing. He has a 
way, almost insolent, of throwing out his thoughts, 
and growling forth his objections to the conventions 
of life, which renders his writing often crabbed and 
inartistic. There is a rudeness which seems some- 
times affected, and a carelessness which is contempt- 
uous. Yet often his indifference to style is a rugged 
insistence on the strongest thought, and in his effort 
to express himself unreservedly he reaches a force 
and energy which are refreshing. 

These two were the ouly writings of Thoreau 
published in his lifetime. He printed contributions 
to the magazines from time to time, and out of 



INTRODUCTION. 301 

these and his manuscripts have been gathered five 
other volumes, Excursions in Field and Forest, 
The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, Letters to Various 
Persons, A Yankee in Canada. To Excursions 
was prefixed a biographical sketch by R. W. Emer- 
son, which gives one a very vivid portrait of this 
unique man. Cape Cod is the record of a walk 
taken the length of the Cape, and that, with Walden, 
are likely to remain as the most finished and agree- 
able books by the writer. All of his writings, how- 
ever, will be searched for the evidence which they 
give of a mind singular for its independence, its 
resolute confronting of the problems of life, its in- 
sight into nature, its isolation, and its wayward- 
ness. 

The first two papers which follow are from Wal- 
den, the third from Cape Cod. 



SOUNDS. 

I did not read books the first summer ; I hoed 
beans. Nay, I often did better than this. There 
were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the 
bloom of the present moment to any work, whether 
of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my 
life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having 
taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny door- 
way from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst 
the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed 
solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around 
or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the 
sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of 
some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I 
was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those 
seasons like corn in the night, and they were far 
better than any work of the hands would have 
been. They were not time subtracted from my 
life, but so much over and above my usual allow- 
ance. I realized what the Orientals mean by con- 
templation and the forsaking of works. For the 
most part I minded not bow the hours went. The 
day advanced as if to light some work of mine ; it 
was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing 



SOUNDS. 303 

memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing 
like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good 
fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on 
the hickory before my door, so had I my chuckle 
or suppressed warble which he might hear out of 
my nest. My days were not days of the week, 
bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were 
they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking 
of a clock ; for I lived like the Puri Indians, of 
whom it is said that " for yesterday, to-day, and to- 
morrow they have only one word, and they express 
the variety of meaning by pointing backward for 
yesterday, forward for to-morrow, and overhead 
for the passing day." This was sheer idleness to 
my fellow-townsmen, no doubt ; but if the birds 
and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should 
not have been found wanting. A man must find 
his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural 
day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his in- 
dolence. 

I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life 
over those who were obliged to look abroad for 
amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life 
itself, was become my amusement and never ceased 
to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes and 
without an end. If we were always indeed getting 
our living, and regulating our lives according to 
the last and best mode we had learned, we should 
never be troubled with ennui. Follow your genius 
closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a 
fresh prospect every hour. Housework was a pleas- 



304 HENRY DAVID TEOREAU. 

ant pastime. When my floor was dirty, I rose 
early, and, setting all my furniture out of doors on 
the grass, bed and bedstead making but one budget, 
dashed water on the floor, and sprinkled white sand 
from the pond on it, and then with a broom scrubbed 
it clean and white ; and by the time the villagers had 
broken their fast, the morning sun had dried my 
house sufficiently to allow me to move in again, and 
my meditations were almost uninterrupted. It was 
pleasant to see my whole household effects out on 
the grass, making a little pile like a gypsy's pack, 
and my three-legged table, from which I did not 
remove the books and pen and ink, standing amid 
the pines and hickories. They seemed glad to get 
out themselves, and as if unwilling to be brought 
in. I was sometimes tempted to stretch an awning 
over them and take my seat there. It was worth 
the while to see the sun shine on these things, and 
hear the free wind blow on them ; so much more 
interesting most familiar objects look out of doors 
than in the house. A bird sits on the next bough, 
life-everlasting grows under the table, and black- 
berry vines run round its legs ; pine cones, chestnut 
burs, and strawberry leaves are strewn about. It 
looked as if this was the way these forms came to 
be transferred to our furniture, to tables, chairs, 
and bedsteads, — because they once stood in the 
midst of them. 

My house was on the side of a hill, immediately 
on the edge of the larger wood, in the midst of a 
young forest of pitch pines and hickories, and half a 



SOUNDS. 305 

dozen rods from the pond, to which a narrow foot- 
path led down the hill. In my front yard grew the 
strawberry, blackberry, and life-everlasting, johns- 
wort and goldenrod, shrub-oaks and sand-cherry, 
blueberry and groundnut. Near the end of May, 
'the sand-cherry (cerasus pumila) adorned the sides 
of the path with its delicate flowers arranged in 
umbels cylindrically about its short stems, which 
last, in the fall, weighed down with good-sized and 
handsome cherries, fell over in wreaths like rays 
on every side. I tasted them out of compliment 
to Nature, though they were scarcely palatable. 
The sumach (rhas glabra), grew luxuriantly about 
the house, pushing up through the embankment 
which I had made, and growing five or six feet the 
first season. Its broad, pinnate, tropical leaf was 
pleasant though strange to look on. The large 
buds, suddenly pushing out late in the spring from 
dry sticks which had seemed to be dead, developed 
themselves as by magic into graceful green and'* 
tender boughs, an inch in diameter ; and sometimes, 
as I sat at my window, so heedlessly did they grow 
and tax their weak joints, I heard a fresh and 
tender bough suddenly fall like a fan to the ground, 
when there was not a breath of air stirring, broken 
off by its own weight. In August, the large masses 
of berries, which, when in flower, had attracted 
many wild bees, gradually assumed their bright, 
velvety, crimson hue, and by their weight again 
bent down and broke the tender limbs. 
20 



306 HENRY DAVID TROREAU. 

As I sit at my window this summer afternoon, 
hawks are circling about my clearing; the tantivy 
of wild pigeons, flying by twos and threes athwart 
my view, or perching restless on the white- pine 
boughs behind my house, gives a voice to the air ; 
a fishhawk dimples the glassy surface of the pond 
and brings up a fish ; a mink steals out of the marsh 
before my door and seizes a frog by the shore ; the 
sedge is bending under the weight of the reed- 
birds flitting hither and thither ; and for the last 
half hour I have heard the rattle of railroad cars, 
now dying away and then reviving like the beat of 
a partridge, conveying travellers from Boston to 
the country. For I did not live so out of the world 
as that boy, who, as I hear, was put out to a farmer 
in the east part of the town, but ere long ran away 
and came home again, quite down at the heel and 
homesick. He' had never seen such a dull and 
out-of-the-way place ; the folks were all gone off: ; 
why, you could n't even hear the whistle ! I doubt 
if there is such a place in Massachusetts now : — 

" In truth, our village has become a butt 
For one of those fleet railroad shafts, and o'er 
Our peaceful plain its soothing sound is — Concord." 

The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about 
a hundred rods south of where I dwell. I usually 
go to the village along its causeway, and am, as it 
were, related to society by this link. The men on 
the freight trains, who go over the whole length of 
the road, bow to me as to an old acquaintance, they 
pass me so often, and apparently they take me for 



SOUNDS. 307 

an employee ; and so I am. I too would fain be a 
track-repairer somewhere in the orbit of the earth. 

The whistle of the locomotive penetrates my 
woods summer and winter, sounding like the scream 
of a hawk sailing over some farmer's yard, inform- 
ing me that many restless city merchants are arriv- 
ing within the circle of the town, or adventurous 
country traders from the other side. As they come 
under one horizon, they shout their warning to get 
off the track to the other, heard sometimes through 
the circles of two towns. Here come your groce- 
ries, country ; your rations, countrymen ! Nor is 
there any man so independent on his farm that he 
can say them nay. And here 's your pay for them ! 
screams the countryman's whistle ; timber like 
long battering rams going twenty miles an hour 
against the city's walls, and chairs enough to seat 
all the weary and heavy laden that dwell within 
them. With such huge and lumbering civility the 
country hands a chair to the city. All the Indian 
huckleberry hills are stripped, all the cranberry 
meadows are raked into the city. Up comes the 
cotton, down goes the woven cloth ; up comes the 
silk, down goes the woollen ; up come the books, 
but down goes the wit that writes them. 

When I meet the engine with its train of cars 
moving off with planetary motion, — or, rather, 
like a comet, for the beholder knows not if with 
that velocity and with that direction it will ever 
revisit this system, since its orbit does not look like 
a returning curve, — with its steam cloud like a 



308 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

banner streaming behind in golden and silver 
wreaths, like many a downy cloud which I have 
seen,' high in the heavens, unfolding its masses to 
the light, — as if this travelling demigod, this cloud- 
compeller, would ere long take the sunset sky for 
the livery of his train ; when I hear the iron horse 
make the hills echo with his snort like thunder, 
shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire 
and smoke from his nostrils (what kind of winged 
horse or fiery dragon they will put into the new My- 
thology I don't know), it seems as if the earth had 
got a race now worthy to inhabit it. If all were 
as it seems, and men made the elements their serv- 
ants for noble ends ! If the cloud that hangs over 
the engine were the perspiration of heroic deeds, or 
as beneficent as that which floats over the farmer's 
fields, then the elements and Nature herself would 
cheerfully accompany men on their errands and be 
their escort. 

I watch the passage of the morning cars with 
the same feeling that I do the rising of the sun, 
which is hardly more regular. Their train of 
'clouds stretching far behind and rising higher and 
higher, going to heaven while the cars are going to 
Boston, conceals the sun for a minute and casts my 
distant field into the shade, a celestial train beside 
which the petty train of cars which hugs the earth 
is but the barb of the spear. The stabler of the 
iron horse was up early this winter morning by the 
light of the stars amid the mountains, to fodder and 
harness his steed. Fire, too, was awakened thus 



SOUNDS. 309 

early to put the vital heat in him and get him off. 
If the enterprise were as innocent as it is early ! 
If the snow lies deep, they strap on his snow-shoes, 
and with the giant plough plough a furrow from 
the mountains to the seaboard, in which the cars, 
like a following drill-barrow, sprinkle all the rest- 
less men and floating merchandise in the country 
for seed. All day the fire-steed flies over the coun- 
try, stopping only that his master may rest, and I 
am awakened by his tramp and defiant snort at 
midnight, when in some remote glen in the woods 
he fronts the elements incased in ice and snow ; 
and he will reach his stall only with the morning 
star, to start once more on his travels without rest 
or slumber. Or perchance, at evening, I hear him 
in his stable blowing off the superfluous energy of 
the day, that he may calm his nerves and cool his 
liver and brain for a few hours of iron slumber. 
If the enterprise were as heroic and commanding 
as it is protracted and unwearied ! 

Far through unfrequented woods on the confines 
of towns, where once only the hunter penetrated 
by day, in the darkest night dart these bright sa- 
loons without the knowledge of their inhabitants ; 
this -moment stopping at some brilliant station- 
house in town or city, where a social crowd is gath- 
ered, the next in the Dismal Swamp, scaring the 
owl and fox. The startings and arrivals of the 
cars are now the epochs in the village day. They 
go and come with such regularity and precision, 
and their whistle can be heard so far, that the farm- 



310 HENRY DAVID THOREAIT. 

ers set their clocks by them, and thus one well- 
conducted institution regulates a whole country. 
Have not men improved somewhat in punctuality 
since the railroad was invented ? Do they not 
talk and think faster in the depot than they did in 
the stage-office ? There is something electrifying 
in the atmosphere of the former place. I have 
been astonished at the miracles it has wrought ; 
that some of my neighbors, who, I should have 
prophesied, once for all, would never get to Boston 
by so prompt a conveyance, are on hand when the 
bell rings. To do things " railroad fashion " is now 
the by- word ; and it is worth the while to be warned 
so often and so sincerely by any power to get off 
its track. There is no stopping to read the riot 
act, no firing over the heads of the mob, in this 
case. We have constructed a fate, an Atropos, 1 
that never turns aside. (Let that be the name of 
your engine.) Men are advertised that at a certain 
hour and minute these bolts will be shot toward 
particular points of the compass ; yet it interferes 
with no man's business, and the children go to 
school on the other track. We live the steadier 
for it. We are all educated thus to be sons of 
Tell. . The air is full of invisible bolts. Every 
path but your own is the path' of fate. Keep on 
your own track, then. 

1 In the classic mythology there were three Fates who pre- 
sided over the life and death of mankind : Clotho, that spun the 
thread of birth, Lachesis, that measured it, and Atropos, the 
inflexible Fate that cut it off. 



SOUNDS. 311 

What recommends commerce to me is its enter- 
prise and bravery. It does not clasp its hands and 
pray to Jupiter. I see these men every day go 
about their business with more or less courage and 
content, doing more even than they suspect, and 
perchance better employed than they could have 
consciously devised. I am less affected by their 
heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front 
line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheer- 
ful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plough 
for their winter quarters ; who have not merely the 
three-o'-clock in the morning courage, which Bona- 
parte thought was the rarest, but whose courage 
does not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only 
when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron 
steed are frozen. On this morning of the Great 
Snow, perchance, which is still raging and chilling 
men's blood, I hear the muffled tone of their engine 
bell from out the fog bank of their chilled breath, 
which announces that the cars are coming, without 
long delay, notwithstanding the veto of a New 
England northeast snow-storm, and I behold the 
ploughmen covered with snow and rime, their heads 
peering above the mould-board which is turning 
down other than daisies and the nests of field-mice, 
like bowlders of the Sierra Nevada, that occupy an 
outside place in the universe. 

Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, 
alert, adventurous, and unwearied. It is very natu- 
ral in its methods withal, far more so than many 
fantastic enterprises and sentimental experiments, 



312 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

and hence its singular success. I am refreshed and 
expanded when the freight train rattles past me, 
and I smell the stores which go dispensing their 
odors all the way from Long Wharf to Lake Cham- 
plain, reminding me of foreign parts, of coral reefs, 
and Indian oceans, and tropical climes, and the ex- 
tent of the globe. I feel more like a citizen of the 
world at the sight of the palm-leaf which will cover 
so many flaxen New England heads the next sum- 
mer, the Manilla hemp and cocoa-nut husks, the 
old junk, gunny bags, scrap iron, and rusty nails. 
This car-load of torn sails is more legible and inter- 
esting now than if they should be wrought into 
paper and printed books. Who can write so graphi- 
cally the history of the storms they have weathered 
as these rents have done ? They are proof-sheets 
which need no correction. Here goes lumber from 
the Maine woods, which did not go out to sea in 
the last freshet, risen four dollars on the thousand 
because of what did go out or was split up ; pine, 
spruce, cedar, — first, second, third and fourth quali- 
ties, so lately all of one quality, to wave over the 
bear, and moose, and caribou. Next rolls Thomas- 
ton lime, a prime lot, which will get far among the 
hills before it gets slacked. These rags in bales, of 
all hues and qualities, the lowest condition to which 
cotton and linen descend, the final result of dress, 
— of patterns which are now no longer cried up, 
unless it be in Milwaukee, as those sjDlendid arti- 
cles, English, French, or American prints, ging- 
hams, muslins, etc., gathered from all quarters both 



SOUNDS. 313 

of fashion and poverty, going to become paper of 
one color or a few shades only, on which forsooth 
will be written tales of real life, high and low, and 
founded on fact ! This closed car smells of salt 
fish, the strong New England and commercial scent, 
reminding me of the Grand Banks and the fisheries. 
Who has not seen a salt fish, thoroughly cured for 
this world, so that nothing can spoil it, and putting 
the perseverance of the saints to the blush ? with 
which you may sweep or pave the streets, and split 
your kindlings, and the teamster shelter himself 
and his lading against sun, wind, and rain behind it, 
— and the trader, as a Concord trader once did, 
hang it up by his door for a sign when he com- 
mences business, until at last his oldest customer 
cannot tell surely whether it be animal, vegetable, 
or mineral, and yet it shall be as pure as a snow- 
flake, and if it be put into a pot and boiled, will 
come out an excellent dun fish for a Saturday's 
dinner. Next Spanish hides, with the tails still 
preserving their twist and the angle of elevation 
they had when the oxen that wore them were ca- 
reering over the pampas of the Spanish main, — a 
type of all obstinacy, and evincing how almost hope- 
less and incurable are all constitutional vices. I 
confess, that practically speaking, when I have 
learned a man's real disposition, I have no hopes of 
changing it for the better or worse in this state of 
existence. As the Orientals say, " A cur's tail may 
be warmed, and pressed, and bound round with liga- 
tures, and after a twelve years' labor bestowed upon 



314 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

it, still it will retain its natural form." The only- 
effectual cure for such inveteracies as these tails 
exhibit is to make glue of them, which I believe is 
what is usually done with them, and then they will 
stay put and stick. Here is a hogshead of molasses 
or of brandy directed to John Smith, Cuttingsville, 
Vermont, some trader among the Green Mountains, 
who imports for the farmers near his clearing, and 
now perchance stands over his bulk-head and thinks 
of the last arrivals on the coast, how they may 
affect the price for him, telling his customers this 
moment, as he has told them twenty times before 
this morning, that he expects some by the next 
train of prime quality. It is advertised in the 
" Cuttingsville Times." 

While these things go up other things come 
down. Warned by the whizzing sound, I look up 
from my book and see some tall pine, hewn on far 
northern hills, which has winged its way over the 
Green Mountains and the Connecticut, shot like an 
arrow through the township within ten minutes, and 
scarce another eye beholds it ; going 

"To be the mast 
Of some great ammiral." 1 

And hark ! here comes the cattle-train bearing the 

cattle of a thousand hills, sheepcots, stables, and 

cow-yards in the air, drovers with their sticks, and 

shepherd boys in the midst of their flocks, all but 

the mountain pastures, whirled along like leaves 

blown from the mountains by the September gales. 

1 Milton : Paradise Lost, i. 293, 294. . 



SOUNDS. 315 

The air is filled with the bleating of calves and 
sheep, and the hustling of oxen, as if a pastoral 
valley were going by. When the old bell-wether 
at the head rattles his bell, the mountains do indeed 
skip like rams and the little hills like lambs. A 
car-load of drovers, too, in the midst, on a level 
with their droves now, their vocation gone, but still 
clinging to their useless sticks as their badge of 
office. But their dogs, where are they ? It is a 
stampede to them ; they are quite thrown out ; 
they have lost the scent. Methinks I hear them 
barking behind the Peterboro' Hills, or panting up 
the western slope of the Green Mountains. They 
will not be in at the death. Their vocation, too, is 
gone. Their fidelity and sagacity are below par 
now. They will slink back to their kennels in dis- 
grace, or perchance run wild and strike a league 
with the wolf and the fox. So is your pastoral 
life whirled past and away. But the bell rings, 
and I must get off the track and let the cars go 

by;- 

What 's the railroad to me? 

I never go to see 

Where it ends. 

It fills a few hollows, 

And makes hanks for the swallows, 

It sets the sand a-blowing, 

And the blackberries a-growing, 

but I cross it like a cart-path in the woods. I will 
not have my eyes put out and my ears spoiled by 
its smoke and steam and hissing. 



316 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

Now that the cars are gone by and all the rest- 
less world with them, and the fishes in the pond no 
longer feel their rumbling, I am more alone than 
ever. For the rest of the long afternoon, perhaps, 
my meditations are interrupted only by the faint 
rattle of a carriage or team along the distant high- 
way. 

Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the 
Lincoln, Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the 
wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, 
natural melody, worth importing into the wilder- 
ness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this 
sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the 
pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a 
harp which it swept. All sound heard at the great- 
est possible distance produces one and the same 
effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the 
intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of 
earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it 
imparts to it. There came to me in this case a 
melody which the air had strained, and which had 
conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, 
that portion of the sound which the elements had 
taken up and modulated and echoed from vale to 
vale. The echo is, to some extent, an original 
sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It 
is not merely a repetition of what was worth re- 
peating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood ; 
the same trivial words and 'notes sung by a wood- 
nymph. 

At evening, the distant lowing of some cow in 



SOUNDS. 317 

the horizon beyond the woods sounded sweet and 
melodious, and at first I would mistake it for the 
voices of certain minstrels by whom I was some- 
times serenaded, who might be straying over hill 
and dale ; but soon I was not unpleasantly disap- 
pointed when it was prolonged into the cheap and 
natural music of the cow. I do not mean to be 
satirical, but to express my appreciation of those 
youths' singing, when I state that I perceived 
clearly that it was akin to the music of the cow, 
and they were at length one articulation of Nature. 
Regularly at half -past seven, in one part of the 
summer, after the evening train had gone by, the 
whippoorwills chanted their vespers for half an 
hour, sitting on a stump by my door, or upon the 
ridge-pole of the house. They would begin to sing 
almost with as much precision as a clock, within five 
minutes of a particular time, referred to the setting 
of the sun, every evening. I had a rare opportunity 
to become acquainted with their habits. Sometimes 
I heard four or five at once in different parts of the 
wood, by accident one a bar behind another, and so 
near me that I distinguished not only the cluck after 
each note, but often that singular buzzing sound 
like a fly in a spider's web, only proportionally 
louder. Sometimes one would circle round and 
round me in the woods a few feet distant as if teth- 
ered by a string, when probably I was near its 
eggs. They sang at intervals throughout the night, 
.and were again as musical as ever just before and 
about dawn. 



318 HENRY DAVID TROREAXl. 

When other birds are still, the screech owls take 
up the strain, like mourning women their ancient 
u-lu-lu. 1 Their dismal scream is truly Ben Jon- 
sonian. 2 Wise midnight hags ! It is no honest and 
blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, but, without jest- 
ing, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual con- 
solations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs 
and the delights of supernal love in the infernal 
groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their 
doleful responses, trilled along the woodside ; re- 
minding me sometimes of music and singing-birds ; 
as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the 
regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. They 
are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy fore- 
bodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape 
night-walked the earth and did the deeds of dark- 
ness, now expiating their sins with their wailing 
hymns or threnodies in the scenery of their trans- 
gressions. They give me a new sense of the vari- 
ety and capacity of that nature which is our com- 
mon dwelling. Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor- 
r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and 
circles with the restlessness of despair to some new 
perch on the gray oaks. Then — that I never had 
been bor-r-r-r-n ! echoes another on the farther side 
with tremulous sincerity, and — bor-r-r-r-n ! comes 
faintly from far in the Lincoln woods. 

1 The simple form of mourning, an elemental succession of 
sounds, which both in Greek and Latin gave rise to nouns and 
verbs descriptive of mourning. 

2 As in The Masque of Queens. 



SOUNDS. 319 

I was also serenaded by a hooting owl. Near at 
hand you could fancy it the most melancholy sound 
in Nature, as if she meant by this to stereotype and 
make permanent in her choir the dying moans of a 
human being, — some poor weak relic of mortality 
who has left hope behind, and howls like an animal, 
yet with human sobs, on entering the dark valley, 
made more awful by a certain gurgling melodious- 
ness, — I find myself beginning with the letters gl 
when I try to imitate it, — expressive of a mind 
which has reached the gelatinous mildewy stage in 
the mortification of all healthy and courageous 
thought. It reminded me of ghouls and idiots and 
insane howlings. But now one answers from far 
woods in a strain made really melodious by dis- 
tance, — Hoo hoo hoo, hoover hoo ; and indeed for 
the most part it suggested only pleasing associa- 
tions, whether heard by day or night, summer or 
winter. 

I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the 
idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound 
admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods 
which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and un- 
developed nature which men have not recognized. 
They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied 
thoughts which all have.. All day the sun has 
shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where 
the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, 
and small hawks circulate above, and the chicadee 
lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and 
rabbit skulk beneath ; but now a more dismal and 



320 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures 
awakes to express the meaning of Nature there. 

Late in the evening I heard the distant rumbling 
of wagons over bridges, — a sound heard farther 
than almost any other at night, — the baying of dogs, 
and sometimes again the lowing of some disconso- 
late cow in a distant barn-yard. In the mean while 
.•ill the shore rang with the trump of bullfrogs, the 
sturdy spirits of ancient wine-bibbers and wassailers, 
still unrepentant, trying to sing a catch in their 
Stygian lake, — if the Walden nymphs will pardon 
the comparison, for though there are almost no 
weeds, there are frogs there, — who would fain keep 
up the hilarious rules of their old festal tables, 
though their voices have waxed hoarse and solemnly 
grave, mocking at mirth, and the wine has lost its 
flavor, and become only liquor to distend their 
paunches, and sweet intoxication never comes to 
drown the memory of the past, but mere saturation 
and waterloggedness and distention. The most 
alderman ic, with his chin upon a heart-leaf, which 
serves for a, napkin to his drooling chaps, under 
this northern shore quaffs a deep draught of the 
once scorned water, and passes round the cup with 
the ejaculation tr-r-r-ooi/k, tr-r-r-ootil\ tr-r-r-oonk ! 
and straightway comes over the water from some 
distant cove the same password repeated, where the 
next in seniority and girth has gulped down to his 
mark ; and when this observance has made the cir- 
cuit of the shores, then ejaculates the master of 
ceremonies, with satisfaction, tr-r-r-oonh! and each 



SOUNDS. 321 

in his turn repeats the same down to the least dis- 
tended, leakiest, and flabbiest paunched, that there 
be no mistake ; and then the bowl goes round again 
and again, until the sun disperses the morning mist, 
and only the patriarch is not under the pond, but 
vainly bellowing troonk from time to time, and paus- 
ing for a reply. 

I am not sure that I ever heard the sound of 
cock-crowing from my clearing, and I thought that 
it might be worth the while to keep a cockerel for 
his music merely, as a singing-bird. The note of 
this once wild Indian pheasant is certainly the most 
remarkable of any bird's, and if they could be nat- 
uralized without being domesticated, it would soon 
become the most famous sound in our woods, sur- 
passing the clangor of the goose and the hooting of 
the owl ; and then imagine the cackling of the hens 
to fill the pauses when their lords' clarions rested ! 
No wonder that man added this bird to his tame 
stock, — to say nothing of the eggs and drumsticks. 
To walk in a winter morning in a wood where 
these birds abounded, their native woods, and hear 
the wild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and shrill 
for miles over the resounding earth, drowning the 
feeble notes of other birds, — think of it ! It would 
put nations on the alert. Who would not be early 
to rise, and rise earlier and earlier every successive 
day of his life, till he became unspeakably healthy, 
wealthy, and wise ? This foreign bird's note is cel- 
ebrated by the poets of all countries along with the 
notes of their native songsters. All climates agree 
21 



322 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

with brave Chanticleer. He is more indigenous 
even than the natives. His health is ever good, 
his lungs are sound, his spirits never flag. Even 
the sailor on the Atlantic and Pacific is awakened 
by his voice ; but its shrill sound never roused my 
slumbers. I kept neither dog, cat, cow, pig, nor 
hens, so that you would have said there was a de- 
ficiency of domestic sounds ; neither the churn, nor 
the spinning wheel, nor even the singing of the ket- 
tle, nor the hissing of the urn, nor children crying, 
to comfort one. An old-fashioned man would have 
lost his senses or died of ennui before this. Not 
even rats in the wall, for they were starved out, or 
rather were never baited in, — only squirrels on 
the roof and under the floor, a whippoorwill on the 
ridgepole, a blue-jay screaming beneath the window, 
a hare or woodchuck under the house, a screech-owl 
or a cat-owl behind it, a flock of wild geese or a 
laughing loon on the pond, and a fox to bark in the 
night. Not even a lark or an oriole, those mild 
plantation birds, ever visited my clearing. No 
cockerels to crow nor hens to cackle in the yard. 
No yard ! but unfenced Nature reaching up to your 
very sills. A young forest growing up under your 
windows, and wild sumachs and blackberry vines 
breaking through into your cellar ; sturdy pitch- 
pines rubbing and creaking against the shingles for 
want of room, their roots reaching quite under the 
house. Instead of a scuttle or a blind blown off in 
the gale, — a pine-tree snapped off or torn up by 
the roots behind your house for fuel. Instead of 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS. 323 

no path to the front-yard gate in the Great Snow, 
— no gate, — no front yard, — and no path to the 
civilized world ! 



II. 
BRUTE NEIGHBORS. 

Why do precisely these objects which we behold 
make a world ? Why has man just these species 
of animals for his neighbors ; as if nothing but a 
mouse could have filled this crevice? I suspect 
that Pilpay & Co. 1 have put animals to their best 
use, for they are all beasts of burden, in a sense, 
made to carry some portion of our thoughts. 

The mice which haunted my house were not the 
common ones, which are said to have been intro- 
duced into the country, but a wild native kind not 
found in the village. I sent one to a distinguished 
naturalist, and it interested him much. When I 
was building, one of these had its nest underneath 
the house, and before I had laid the second floor, 
and swept out the shavings, would come out regu- 
larly at lunch time and pick up the crumbs at my 
feet. It probably had never seen a man before ; 
and it soon became quite familiar, and would run 
over my shoes and up my clothes. It could readily 
ascend the sides of the room by short impulses, like 

1 That is, the fable-writers, of whom Pilpay, a Brahmin, 
enjoys in the East the distinction which has been given to iEsop 
in the West. 



324 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

a squirrel, which it resembled in its motions. At 
length, as I leaned with my elbow on the bench one 
day, it ran up my clothes, and along my sleeve, 
and round and round the paper which held my 
dinner, while I kept the latter close, and dodged 
and played at bo-peep with it; and when at last 
I held still a piece of cheese between my thumb 
and finger, it came and nibbled it, sitting in my 
hand, and afterward cleaned its face and paws, like 
a fly, and walked away. 

A phoebe soon built in my shed, and a robin for 
protection in a pine which grew against the house. 
In June the partridge (Tetrao umbellus), which is 
so shy a bird, led her brood past my windows, from 
the woods in the rear to the front of my house, 
clucking and calling to them like a hen, and in all 
her behavior proving herself the hen of the woods. 
The young suddenly disperse on your approach, at 
a signal from the mother, as if a whirlwind had 
swept them away, and they so exactly resemble the 
dried leaves and twigs that many a traveller has 
placed his foot in the midst of a brood, and heard 
the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her anx- 
ious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings 
to attract' his attention, without suspecting their 
neighborhood. The parent will sometimes roll and 
spin round before you in such a dishabille, that you 
cannot, for a few moments, detect what kind of 
creature it is. The young squat still and flat, often 
running their heads under a leaf, and mind only 
their mother's directions given from a distance, nor 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS. 325 

will your approach make them run again and be- 
tray themselves. You may even tread on them, or 
have your eyes on them for a minute, without dis- 
covering them. I have held them in my open hand 
at such a time, and still their only care, obedient to 
their mother and their instinct, was to squat there 
without fear or trembling. So perfect is this in- 
stinct, that once, when I had laid them on the 
leaves again, and one accidentally fell on its side, it 
was found with the rest in exactly the same posi- 
tion ten minutes afterward. They are not callow 
like the young of most birds, but more perfectly 
developed and precocious even than chickens. The 
remarkably adult yet innocent expression of their 
open and serene eyes is very memorable. All in- 
telligence seems reflected in them. They suggest 
not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom 
clarified by experience. Such an eye was not born 
when the bird was, but is coeval with the sky it re- 
flects. The woods do not yield another such a 
gem. The traveller does not often look into such 
a limpid well. The ignorant or reckless sportsman 
often shoots the parent at such a time, and leaves 
these innocents to fall a prey to some prowling 
beast or bird, or gradually mingle with the decaying 
leaves which they so much resemble. It is said 
that when hatched by a hen they will directly dis- 
perse on some alarm, and so are lost, for they never 
hear the mother's call which gathers them again. 
These were my hens and chickens. 

It is remarkable how many creatures live wild 



326 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

and free, though secret, in the woods, and still sus- 
tain themselves in the neighborhood of towns, sus- 
pected by hunters only. How retired the otter 
manages to live here ! He grows to be four feet 
long, as big as a small boy, perhaps without any 
human being getting a glimpse of him. I formerly 
saw the raccoon in the woods behind where my 
house is built, and probably still heard their whin- 
nering at night. Commonly I rested an hour or 
two in the shade at noon, after planting, and ate 
my lunch, and read a little by a spring which was 
the source of a swamp and of a brook, oozing from 
under Brister's Hill, half a mile from my field. 
The approach to this was through a succession of 
descending grassy hollows, full of young pitch- 
pines, into a larger wood about the swamp. There, 
in a very secluded and shaded spot, under a spread- 
ing white-pine, there was yet a clean, firm sward to 
sit on. I had dug out the spring and made a well 
of clear gray water, where I could dip up a pailful 
without roiling it, and thither I went for this pur- 
pose almost every day in midsummer, when the 
pond was warmest. Thither, too, the wood-cock 
led her brood, to probe the mud for worms, flying 
but a foot above them down the bank, while they 
ran in a troop beneath ; but at last, spying me, she 
would leave her young and circle round and round 
me, nearer and nearer till within four or five feet, 
pretending broken wings and legs, to attract my 
attention, and get off her young, who would already 
have taken up their march, with faint wiry peep, 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS. 327 

single file through the swamp, as she directed. Or 
I heard the peep of the young when I could not see 
the parent bird. There, too, the turtle-doves sat 
over the spring, or fluttered from bough to bough 
of the soft white-pines over my head ; or the red 
squirrel, coursing down the nearest bough, was par- 
ticularly familiar and inquisitive. You only need 
sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the 
woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit them- 
selves to you by turns. 

I was witness to events of a less peaceful char- 
acter. One day when I went out to my wood-pile, 
or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large 
ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly 
half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending 
with one another. Having once got hold, they 
never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled 
on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was 
surprised to find that the chips were covered with 
such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a 
helium, a war between two races of ants, the red 
always pitted against the black, and frequently 
two red ones to one black. The legions of these 
Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my 
wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with 
the dead and dying, both red and black. It was 
the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the 
only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was 
raging ; internecine war ; the red republicans on 
the one hand, and the black imperialists on the 
other. On every side they were engaged in deadly 



328 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, 
and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I 
watched a couple that were fast locked in each 
other's embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the 
chips, now at noon-day prepared to fight till the 
sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red 
champion had fastened himself like a vise to his 
adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on 
that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at 
one of his feelers near the root, having already 
caused the other to go by the board ; while the 
stronger black one dashed him from side to side, 
and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already di- 
vested him of several of his members. They fought 
with more pertinacity than bull-dogs. Neither 
manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was 
evident that their battle-cry was Conquer or die. 
In the mean while there came along a single red 
ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of 
excitement, who either had dispatched his foe, or 
had not yet taken part in the battle ; probably the 
latter, for he had lost none of his limbs ; whose 
mother had charged him to return with his shield 
or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, 
who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now 
come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. 1 He saw 
this unequal combat from afar, — for the blacks 

1 la Homer's Iliad, Achilles, in a sullen wrath against Aga- 
memnon, remains in his tent and refuses to engage in battle, 
until Patroclus, his friend whom he armed, has been killed by 
Hector, when he goes out to avenge the death on the Trojan 
chief. 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS. 329 

were nearly twice the size of the red, — he drew 
near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard 
within half an inch of the combatants ; then, watch- 
ing his opportunity, he sprang upon the black war- 
rior, and commenced his operations near the root 
of his right fore-leg, leaving the foe to select among 
his own members ; and so there were three united 
for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been in 
vented which put all other locks and cements to 
shame. I should not have wondered by this time 
to find that they had their respective musical bands 
stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their 
national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer 
the dying combatants. I was myself excited some- 
what even as if they had been men. The more 
you think of it, the less the difference. And cer- 
tainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord 
history, at least, if in the history of America, that 
will bear a moment's comparison with this, whether 
fpr the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriot- 
ism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for 
carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord 
Fight ! Two killed on the patriots' side, and Lu- 
ther Blanchard wounded ! Why here every ant 
was a Buttrick, — " Fire ! for God's sake fire j " — 
and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hos- 
mer. There was not one hireling there. I have 
no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as 
much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three- 
penny tax on their tea ; and the results of this bat- 
tle will be as important and memorable to those 



330 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker 
Hill, at least. 

I took up the chip on which the three I have 
particularly described were struggling, carried it 
into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on 
my window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding 
a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw 
that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the 
near fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his re- 
maining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, 
exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of 
the black warrior, whose breast-plate was appar- 
ently too thick for him to pierce ; and the dark 
carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity 
such as war only could excite. They struggled 
half an hour longer under the tumbler, and when 
I looked again the black soldier had severed the 
heads of his foes from their bodies, and the still 
living heads were hanging on either side of him 
like ghastly trophies at his saddle-bow, still appar- 
ently as firmly fastened as ever, and he was en- 
deavoring with feeble struggles, being without feel- 
ers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know 
not how many other wounds, to divest himself of 
them ; which at length, after half an hour more, 
he accomplished. I raised the glass, and he went 
off over the window-sill in that crippled state. 
Whether he finally survived that combat, and spent 
the remainder of his days in some Hotel des Inva- 
lides, 1 I do not know ; but I thought that his in- 

1 The Hotel des Invalides in Paris was founded in 1670, by 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS. 331 

dustry would not be worth much thereafter. I 
never learned which party was victorious, nor the 
cause of the war ; but I felt for the rest of that day 
as if I had had my feelings excited and harrowed 
by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and carnage, 
of a human battle before my door. 

Kirby and Spence 1 tell us that the battles of 
ants have long been celebrated and the date of them 
recorded, though they say that Huber is the only 
modern author who appears to have witnessed them. 
" iEneas Sylvius," say they, " after giving a very 
circumstantial account of one contested with great 
obstinacy by a great and small species on the trunk 
of a pear-tree," adds that " ' This action was fought 
in the pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth, in the 
presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent law- 
yer, who related the whole history of the battle 
with the greatest fidelity.' A similar engagement 
between great and small ants is recorded by Olaus 
Magnus, in which the small ones, being victorious, 
are said to have buried the bodies of their own sol- 
diers, but left those of their giant enemies a prey to 
the birds. This event happened previous to the 
expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the Second from 
Sweden." The battle which I witnessed took place 
in the Presidency of Polk, five years before the 
passage of Webster's Fugitive-Slave Bill. 

Louis XIV., as a home for disabled and infirm soldiers, and in 
a crypt under the church connected with it is the tomb of Na- 
poleon, 
i In their Introduction to Entomology. 



332 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

Many a village Bose, fit only to course a mud- 
turtle in a victualling cellar, sported his heavy quar- 
ters in the woods, without the knowledge of his 
master, and ineffectually smelled at old fox bur- 
rows and woodchucks' holes ; led perchance by 
some slight cur which nimbly threaded the wood, 
and might still inspire a natural terror in its deni- 
zens ; — now far behind his guide, barking like a 
canine bull toward some small squirrel which had 
treed itself for scrutiny, then, cantering off, bending 
the bushes with his weight, imagining that he is on 
the track of some stray member of the jerbilla 
family. Once I was surprised to see a cat walking 
along the stony shore of the pond, for they rarely 
wander so far from home. The surprise was mut- 
ual. Nevertheless the most domestic cat, which 
has lain on a rug all her days, appears quite at 
home in the woods, and, by her sly and stealthy be- 
havior, proves herself more native there than the 
regular inhabitants. Once, when berrying, I met 
with a cat with young kittens in the woods, quite 
wild, and they all, like their mother, had their 
backs up and were fiercely spitting at me. A few 
years before I lived in the woods there was what 
was called a u winged cat " in one of the farm- 
houses in Lincoln nearest the pond, Mr. Gillian 
Baker's. When I called to see her in June, 1842, 
she was gone a-hunting in the woods, as was her 
wont (I am not sure whether it was a male or 
female, and so use the more common pronoun), but 
her mistress told me that she came into the neigh- 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS. 333 

borhood a little more than a year before, in April, 
and was finally taken into their house ; that she was 
of a dark brownish-gray color, with a white spot 
on her throat, and white feet, and had a large bushy 
tail like a fox ; that in the winter the fur grew thick 
and flatted out along her sides, forming strips ten 
or twelve inches long by two and a half wide, and 
under her chin like a muff, the upper side loose, the 
under matted like felt, and in the spring these ap- 
pendages dropped off. They gave me a pair of her 
" wings," which I keep still. There is no appear- 
ance of a membrane about them. Some thought it 
was part flying-squirrel or some other wild animal, 
which is not impossible, for, according to natura- 
lists, prolific hybrids have been produced by the 
union of the marten and domestic cat. This would 
have been the right kind of cat for me to keep, if I 
had kept any ; for why should not a poet's cat be 
winged as well as his horse? 

In the fall the loon ( Colymbus glacialis) came, as 
usual, to moult and bathe in the pond, making the 
woods ring with his wild laughter before I had 
risen. At rumor of his arrival all the Mill-dam 
sportsmen are on the alert, in gigs and on foot, two 
by two and three by three,* with patent rifles and 
conical balls and spyglasses. They come rustling 
through the woods like autumn leaves, at least ten 
men to one loon. Some station themselves on this 
side of the pond, some on that, for the poor bird 
cannot be omnipresent ; if he dive here he must 
come up there. But now the kind October wind 



334 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

rises, rustling the leaves and rippling the surface 
of the water, so that no loon can be heard or seen, 
though his foes sweep the pond with spy-glasses, 
and make the woods resound with their discharges. 
The waves generously rise and dash angrily, taking 
sides with all waterfowl, and our sportsmen must 
beat a retreat to town and shop and unfinished jobs. 
But they were too often successful. When I went 
to get a pail of water early in the morning I fre- 
quently saw this stately bird sailing out of my cove 
within a few rods. If I endeavored to overtake 
him in a boat, in order to see how he would ma- 
noeuvre, he would dive and be completely lost, so 
that I did not discover him again, sometimes, till 
the latter part of the day. But I was more than a 
match for him on the surface. He commonly went 
off in a rain. 

As I was paddling along the north shore one 
very calm October afternoon, for such days espe- 
cially they settle on to the lakes, like the milkweed 
down, having looked in vain over the pond for a 
loon, suddenly one, sailing out from the shore to- 
ward the middle a few rods in front of me, set up 
his wild laugh and betrayed himself. I pursued 
with a paddle and he' dived, but when he came up 
I was nearer than before. He dived again, but I 
miscalculated the direction he would take, and we 
were fifty rods apart when he came to the surface 
this time, for I had helped to widen the interval ; 
and again he laughed long and loud, and with more 
reason than before. He manoeuvred so cunningly 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS. 335 

that I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. 
Each time, when he came to the surface, turning 
his head this way and that, he coolly surveyed the 
water and the land, and apparently chose his course 
so that he might come up where there was the 
widest expanse of water and at the greatest distance 
from the boat. It was surprising how quickly he 
made up his mind and put his resolve into execu- 
tion. He led me at once to the widest part of the 
pond, and could not be driven from it. While he 
was thinking one thing in his brain, I was en- 
deavoring to divine his thought in mine. It was a 
pretty game, played on the smooth surface of the 
pond, a man against a loon. Suddenly your ad- 
versary's checker disappears beneath the board, and 
the problem is to place yours nearest to where his 
will appear again. Sometimes he would come up 
unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, having 
apparently passed directly under the boat. So long- 
winded was he and so unweariable, that when he 
had swum farthest he would immediately plunge 
again, nevertheless ; and then no wit could divine 
where in the deep pond, beneath the smooth sur- 
face, he might be speeding his way like a fish, for 
he had time and ability to visit the bottom of the 
pond in its deepest part. It is said that loons have 
been caught in the New York lakes eighty feet be- 
neath the surface, with hooks set for trout, — though 
Walden is deeper than that. How surprised must 
the fishes be to see this ungainly visitor from an- 
other sphere speeding his way amid their schools ! 



336 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

Yet lie appeared to know his course as surely under 
water as on the surface, and swam much faster there. 
Once or twice I saw a ripple where he approached 
the surface, just put his head out to reconnoitre, 
and instantly dived again. I found that it was as 
well for me to rest on my oars and wait his reap- 
pearing as to endeavor to calculate where he would 
rise ; for again and again, when I was straining my 
eyes over the surface one way, I would suddenly be 
startled by his unearthly laugh behind me. But 
why, after displaying so much cunning, did he in- 
variably betray himself the moment he came up by 
that loud laugh ? Did not his white breast enough 
betray him ? He was indeed a silly loon, I thought. 
I could commonly hear the plash of the water when 
he came up, and so also detected him. But after 
an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as will- 
ingly and swam yet farther than at first. It was 
surprising to see how serenely he sailed off with un- 
ruffled breast when he came to the surface, doing 
all the work with his webbed feet beneath. His 
usual note was this demoniac laughter, yet some- 
what like that of a waterfowl ; but occasionally, 
when he had balked me most successfully and come 
up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly 
howl, probably more like that of a wolf than any 
bird ; as when a beast puts his muzzle to the ground 
and deliberately howls. This was his looning, — 
perhaps the wildest sound that is ever heard here, 
making the woods ring far and wide. I concluded 
that he laughed in derision of my efforts, confident 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS. 337 

of his own resources. Though the sky was by this 
time overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could 
see where he broke the surface when I did not hear 
him. His white breast, the stillness of the air, and 
the smoothness of the water were all agaiust him. 
At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered 
one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the 
god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came 
a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and 
filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was im- 
pressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, 
and his god was angry with me ; and so I left him 
disappearing far away on the tumultuous surface. 

For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cun- 
ningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the 
pond, far from the sportsman ; tricks which they 
will have less need to practise in Louisiana bayous. 
When compelled to rise they would sometimes cir- 
cle round and round and over the pond at a consid- 
erable height, from which they could easily see 'to 
other ponds and the river, like black motes in the 
sky ; and, when I thought they had gone off thither 
long since, they would settle down by a slanting 
flight of a quarter of a mile on to a distant part which 
was left free ; but what beside safety they got by 
sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, un- 
less they love its water for the same reason that 
I do. 

22 



338 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

HI. 

THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 

This light-house, known to mariners as the 
Cape Cod or Highland Light, is one of onr " pri- 
mary sea-coast lights," and is usually the first seen 
by those approaching the entrance of Massachusetts 
Bay from Europe. It is forty-three miles from 
Cape Ann Light, and forty-one from Boston Light. 
It stands about twenty rods from the edge of the 
bank, which is here formed of clay. I borrowed 
the plane and square, level and dividers, of a car- 
penter who was shingling a barn near by, and using 
one of those shingles made of a mast, contrived a 
rude sort of quadrant, with pins for sights and 
pivots, and got the angle of elevation of the Bank 
opposite the light-house, and with a couple of cod- 
lines the length of its slope, and so measured its 
height on the shingle. It rises one hundred and 
ten feet above its immediate base, or about one 
hundred and twenty-three feet above mean low 
water. Graham, who has carefully surveyed the 
extremity of the Cape, makes it one hundred and 
thirty feet. The mixed sand and clay lay at an 
angle of forty degrees with the horizon, where I 
measured it, but the clay is generally much steeper. 
No cow nor hen ever gets down it. Half a mile far- 
ther south the bank is fifteen or twenty-five feet 
higher, and that appeared to be the highest land in 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 339 

North Truro. Even this vast clay bank is fast 
wearing away. Small streams of water trickling 
down it at intervals of two or three rods have left 
the intermediate clay in the form of steep Gothic 
roofs fifty feet high or more, the ridges as sharp and 
rugged-looking as rocks ; and in one place the bank 
is curiously eaten out in the form of a large semi- 
circular crater. 

According to the light-house keeper, the Cape is 
wasting here on both sides, though most on the 
eastern. In some places it had lost many rods 
within the last year, and, erelong, the light-house 
must be moved. We calculated, from Ms data, how 
soon the Cape would be quite worn away at this 
point, " for," said he, " I can remember sixty years 
back." We were even more surprised at this last 
announcement — that is, at the slow waste of life 
and energy in our informant, for we had taken him 
to be not more than forty — than at the rapid wast- 
ing of the Cape, and we thought that he stood a 
fair chance to outlive the former. 

Between this October and June of the next year, 
I found that the bank had lost about forty feet in 
one place, opposite the light-house, and it was 
cracked more than forty feet farther from the edge 
at the last date, the shore being strewn with the 
recent rubbish. But I judged that generally it was 
not wearing away here at the rate of more than six 
feet annually. Any conclusions drawn from the 
observations of a few years or one generation only 
are likely to prove false, and the Cape may balk 



340 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

expectation by its durability. In some places even 
a wrecker's foot-path down the bank lasts several 
years. One old inhabitant told us that when the 
light-house was built, in 1798, it was calculated 
that it would stand forty-five years, allowing the 
bank to waste one length of fence each year, " but," 
said he, " there it is " (or rather another near the 
same site, about twenty rods from the edge of the 
bank). 

The sea is not gaining on the Cape everywhere, 
for one man told me of a vessel wrecked long ago 
on the north of Provincetown whose " bones " (this 
was his word) are still visible many rods within the 
present line of the beach, half buried in sand. Per- 
chance they lie alongside the timbers of a whale. 
The general statement of the inhabitants is, that 
the Cape is wasting on both sides, but extending 
itself on particular points on the south and west, 
as at Chatham and Monomoy Beaches, and at Bill- 
ingsgate, Long, and Race Points. James Freeman 
stated in his day that above three miles had been 
added to Monomoy Beach during the previous fifty 
years, and it is said to be still extending as fast as 
ever. A writer in the " Massachusetts Magazine," 
in the last century, tells us that " when the English 
first settled upon the Cape, there was an island off 
Chatham, at three leagues' distance, called Webbs' 
Island, containing twenty acres, covered with red- 
cedar or savin. The inhabitants of Nantucket used 
to carry wood from it ; " but he adds that in his 
day a large rock alone marked the spot, and the 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 341 

water was six fathoms deep there. The entrance to 
Nauset Harbor, which was once in Eastham, has 
now travelled south into Orleans. The islands in 
Wellfleet Harbor once formed a continuous beach, 
though now small vessels pass between them. And 
so of many other parts of this coast. 

Perhaps what the Ocean takes from one part of 
the Cape it gives to another, — robs Peter to pay 
Paul. On the eastern side the sea appears to be 
everywhere encroaching on the land. Not only 
the land is undermined, and its ruins carried off by 
currents, but the sand is blown from the beach di- 
rectly up the steep bank where it is one hundred 
and fifty feet high, and covers the original surface 
there many feet deep. If you sit on the edge you 
will have ocular demonstration of this by soon get- 
ting your eyes full. Thus the bank preserves its 
height as fast as it is worn away. This sand is 
steadily travelling westward at a rapid rate, " more 
than a hundred yards," says one writer, within the 
memory of inhabitants now living ; so that in some 
places peat-meadows are buried deep under the 
sand, and the peat is cut through it ; and in one 
place a large peat-meadow has made its appearance 
on the shore in the bank covered many feet deep, 
and peat has been cut there. This accounts for 
that great pebble of peat which we saw in the surf. 
The old oysterman had told us that many years 
ago he lost a " crittur " by her being mired in a 
swamp near the Atlantic side east of his house, and 
twenty years ago he lost the swamp itself entirely, 



342 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

but has since seen signs of it appearing on the 
beach. He also said that he had seen cedar stumps 
" as big as cart-wheels " (!) on the bottom of the 
Bay, three miles off Billingsgate Point, when lean- 
ing over the side of his boat in pleasant weather, 
and that that was dry land not long ago. Another 
told us that a log canoe known to have been buried 
many years before on the Bay side at East Harbor 
in Truro, where the Cape is extremely narrow, 
appeared at length on the Atlantic side, the Cape 
having rolled over it, and an old woman said, — 
" Now, you see, it is true what I told you, that the 
Cape is moving." 

The bars along the coast shift with every storm, 
and in many places there is occasionally none at all. 
We ourselves observed the effect of a single storm 
with a high tide in the night, in July, 1855. It 
moved the sand on the beach opposite the light- 
house to the depth of six feet and three rods in 
width as far as we could see north and south, and 
carried it bodily off no one knows exactly where, 
laying bare in one place a large rock five feet high 
which was invisible before, and narrowing the beach 
to that extent. There is usually, as I have said, no 
bathing on the back side of the Cape, on account of 
the undertow, but when we were there last, the sea 
had, three months before, cast up a bar near this 
light-house, two miles long and ten rods wide, over 
which the tide did not flow, leaving a narrow cove, 
then a quarter of a mile long, between it and the 
shore, which afforded excellent bathing. This cove 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 343 

had from time to time been closed up as the bar 
travelled northward, in one instance imprisoning 
four or five hundred whiting and cod, which died 
there, and the water as often turned fresh and 
finally gave place to sand. This bar, the inhabit- 
ants assured us, might be wholly removed, and the 
water six feet deep there in two or three days. 

The light-house keeper said that when the wind 
blowed strong on to the shore, the waves ate fast 
into the bank, but when it blowed off they took no 
sand away ; for in the former case the wind heaped 
up the surface of the water next to the beach, and 
to preserve its equilibrium a strong undertow im- 
mediately set back again into the sea which carried 
with it the sand and whatever else was in the way, 
and left the beach hard to walk on ; but in the lat- 
ter case the undertow set on, and carried the sand 
with it, so that it was particularly difficult for ship- 
wrecked men to get to land when the wind blowed 
on to the shore, but easier when it blowed off. 
This undertow, meeting the next surface wave on 
the bar which itself has made, forms part of the 
dam over which the latter breaks, as over an up- 
right wall. The sea thus plays with the land, hold- 
ing a sand-bar in its mouth a while before it swal- 
lows it, as a cat plays with a mouse ; but the fatal 
gripe is sure to come at last. The sea sends its 
rapacious east wind to rob the land, but before the 
former has got far with its prey, the land sends its 
honest west wind to recover some of its own. But, 
according to Lieutenant Davis, the forms, extent, 



344 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

and distribution of sand-bars and banks are prin- 
cipally determined, not by winds and waves, but by 
tides. 

Our host said that you would be surprised if you 
were on the beach when the wind blew a hurricane 
directly on to it, to see that none of the drift-wood 
came ashore, but all was carried directly northward 
and parallel with the shore as fast as a man can 
walk, by the inshore current, which sets strongly 
in that direction at flood tide. The strongest swim- 
mers also are carried along with it, and never gain 
an inch toward the beach. Even a large rock has 
been moved half a mile northward along the beach. 
He assured us that the sea was never still on the 
back side of the Cape, but ran commonly as high as 
your head, so that a great part of the time you 
could not launch a boat there, and even in the 
calmest weather the waves run six or eight feet up 
the beach, though then you could get off on a plank. 
Champlain and Pourtincourt could not land here in 
1606, on account of the swell (la houlle), yet the 
savages came off to them in a canoe. In the Sieur 
de la Borde's " Relation des Caraibes," my edition 
of which was published at Amsterdam in 1711, at 
page 530 he says : — 

" Couroumon a Caraibe, also a star [i. e. a god], 
makes the great lames a la mer, and overturns ca- 
noes. Lames a la mer are the long vagues which 
are not broken (e?itrecoupees), and such as one sees 
come to land all in one piece, from one end of a 
beach to another, so that, however little wind there 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 345 

may be, a shallop or a canoe could hardly land 
(aborder terre) without turning over, or being filled 
with water." 

But on the Bay side the water even at its edge 
is often as smooth and still as in a pond. Com- 
monly there are no boats used along this beach. 
There was a boat belonging to the Highland Light 
which the next keeper after he had been there a 
3'ear had not launched, though he said that there 
was good fishing just off the shore. Generally the 
Life Boats cannot be used when needed. When 
the waves run very high it is impossible to get a 
boat off, however skilfully you steer it, for it will 
often be completely covered by the curving edge of 
the approaching breaker as by an arch, and so 
filled with water, or it will be lifted up by its bows, 
turned directly over backwards and all the contents 
spilled out. A spar thirty feet long is served in 
the same way. 

I heard of a party who went off fishing back of 
Wellfleet some years ago, in two boats, in calm 
weather, who, when they had laden their boats with 
fish, and approached the land again, found such a 
swell breaking on it, though there was no wind, 
that they were afraid to enter it. At first they 
thought to pull for Provincetown, but night was 
coming on, and that was many miles distant. Their 
case seemed a desperate one. As often as they 
approached the shore and saw the terrible breakers 
that intervened, they were deterred. In short, they 
were thoroughly frightened. Finally, having thrown 



346 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

their fish overboard, those in one boat chose a favor- 
able opportunity, and succeeded, by skill and good 
luck, in reaching the land, but they were unwilling 
to take the responsibility of telling the others when 
to come in, and as the other helmsman was inex- 
perienced, their boat was swamped at once, yet all 
managed to save themselves. 

Much smaller waves soon make a boat " nail- 
sick," as the phrase is. The keeper said that after 
a long and strong blow there would be three large 
waves, each successively larger than the last, and 
then no large ones for some time, and that, when 
they wished to land in a boat, they came in on the 
last and largest wave. Sir Thomas Browne (as 
quoted in Brand's Popular Antiquities, p. 372), on 
the subject of the tenth wave being " greater or 
more dangerous than any other," after quoting 
Ovid,— 

"Qui venit hie fluctus, fluctus supereminet omnes 
Posterior nono est, undecimo que prior," — 

says, " Which, notwithstanding, is evidently false ; 
nor can it be made out either by observation either 
upon the shore or the ocean, as we have with dili- 
gence explored in both. And surely in vain we 
expect regularity in the waves of the sea, or in the 
particular motions thereof, as we may- in its general 
reciprocations, whose causes are constant, and effects 
therefore correspondent ; whereas its fluctuations 
are but motions subservient, which winds, storms, 
shores, shelves, and every interjacency, irregu- 
lates." 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 347 

We read that the Clay Pounds were so called 
" because vessels have had the misfortune to be 
pounded against it in gales of wind," which we re- 
gard as a doubtful derivation. There are small 
ponds here, upheld by the clay, which were for- 
merly called the Clay Pits. Perhaps this, or Clay 
Ponds, is the origin of the name. Water is found 
in the clay quite near the surface ; but we heard of 
one man who had sunk a well in the sand close by, 
" till he could see stars at noonday," without find- 
ing any. Over this bare Highland the wind has 
full sweep. Even in July it blows the wings over 
the heads of the young turkeys, which do not know 
enough to head against it ; and in gales the doors 
and windows are blown in, and you must hold on 
to the light-house to prevent being blown into the 
Atlantic. They who merely keep out on the beach 
in a storm in the winter are sometimes rewarded 
by the Humane Society. If you would feel the 
full force of a tempest, take up your residence on 
the top of Mount Washington, or at the Highland 
Light, in Truro. 

It was said in 1794 that more vessels were cast 
away on the east shore of Truro than anywhere in 
Barnstable County. Notwithstanding that this 
light-house has since been erected, after almost 
every storm we read of one or more vessels wrecked 
here, and sometimes more than a dozen wrecks are 
visible from this point at one time. The inhabit- 
ants hear the crash of vessels going to pieces as 
they sit round their hearths, and tkey commonly 



348 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

date from some memorable shipwreck. If the his- 
tory of this beach could be written from beginning 
to end, it would be a thrilling page in the history 
of commerce. 

Truro was settled in the year 1700 as Dangerjield. 
This was a very appropriate name, for I afterward 
read on a monument in the graveyard, near Pamet 
River, the following inscription : — 

Sacred 

to the memory of 

57 citizens of Truro, 

who were lost in seven 

vessels, which 

foundered at sea in 

the memorable gale 

of Oct. 3d, 1841. 

Their names and ages by families were recorded on 
different sides of the stone. They are said to have 
been lost on George's Bank, and I was told that 
only one vessel drifted ashore on the back side of 
the Cape, with the boys locked into the cabin and 
drowned. It is said that the homes of all were 
" within a circuit of two miles." Twenty-eight in- 
habitants of Dennis were lost in the same gale ; 
and I read that " in one day, immediately after this 
storm, nearly or quite one hundred bodies were 
taken up and buried on Cape Cod." The Truro 
Insurance Company failed for want of skippers to 
take charge of its vessels. But the surviving in- 
habitants went a fishing again the next year as 
usual. I found that it would not do to speak of 
shipwrecks there, for almost every family has lost 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 349 

some of its members at sea. " Who lives in that 
house? " I inquired. " Three widows," was the reply. 
The stranger and the inhabitant view the shore with 
very different eyes. The former may have come to 
see and admire the ocean in a storm ; but the lat- 
ter looks on it as the scene where his nearest rel- 
atives were wrecked. When I remarked to an 
old wrecker partially blind, who was sitting on the 
edge of the bank smoking a pipe, which he had just 
lit with a match of dried beach-grass, that I sup- 
posed he liked to hear the sound of the surf, he 
answered : " No, I do not like to hear the sound 
of the surf." He had lost at least one son in " the 
memorable gale," and could tell many a tale of the 
shipwrecks which he had witnessed there. 

In the year 1717 a noted pirate named Bellamy 
was led on to the bar off Wellfleet by the captain 
of a snow which he had taken, to whom he had of- 
fered his vessel again if he would pilot him into 
Provincetown Harbor. Tradition says that the lat- 
ter threw over a burning tar barrel in the night, 
which drifted ashore, and the pirates followed it. A 
storm coming on, their whole fleet was wrecked, 
and more than a hundred dead bodies lay along the 
shore. Six who escaped shipwreck were executed. 
"At times, to this day" (1793), says the historian 
of Wellfleet, 1 " there are King William and Queen 
Mary's coppers picked up, and pieces of silver 
called cob-money. The violence of the seas moves 
the sands on the outer bar, so that at times the iron 
1 Levi Whitman, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. 1st series, vol. iii. 



350 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

caboose of the ship [that is, Bellamy's] at low ebbs 
has been seen." Another tells us that, " For many- 
years after this shipwreck, a man of a very singular 
and frightful aspect used every spring and autumn to 
be seen travelling on the Cape, who was supposed 
to have been one of Bellamy's crew. The pre- 
sumption is that he went to some place where 
money had been secreted by the pirates, to get such 
a supply as his exigencies required. When he died, 
many pieces of gold were found in a girdle which 
he constantly wore." 

As I was walking on the beach here in my last 
visit, looking for shells and pebbles, just after that 
storm which I have mentioned as moving the sand 
to a great depth, not knowing but I might find some 
cob-money, I did actually pick up a French crown 
piece, worth about a dollar and six cents, near high 
water mark, on the still moist sand, just under the 
abrupt, caving base of the bank. It was a dark 
slate color, and looked like a flat pebble, but still 
bore a very distinct and handsome head of Louis 
XV., and the usual legend on the reverse, Sit 
Nomen Domini Benedicf.um (Blessed be the Name 
of the Lord), a pleasing sentiment to read in the 
sands of the sea-shore, whatever it might be stamped 
on, and I also made out the date, 1741. Of course, 
I thought at first that it was that same old button 
which I have found so many times, but my knife 
soon showed the silver. Afterwards, rambling on 
the bars at low tide, I cheated my companion by 
holding up round shells (Scutellce) between my 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 351 

fingers, whereupon he quickly stripped and came off 
to me. 

In the Revolution, a British ship of war called 
the Somerset was wrecked near the Clay Pounds, 
and all on board, some hundreds in number, were 
taken prisoners. My informant said that he had 
never seen any mention of this in the histories, but 
that at any rate he knew of a silver watch, which 
one of those prisoners by accident left there, which 
was still going to tell the story. But this event is 
noticed by some writers. 

The next summer I saw a sloop from Chatham 
dragging for anchors and chains just off this shore. 
She had her boats out at the work while she 
shuffled about on various tacks, and, when any- 
thing was found, drew up to hoist it on board. It 
is a singular employment, at which men are regu- 
larly hired and paid for their industry, to hunt to- 
day in pleasant weather for anchors which have 
been lost, — the sunken faith and hope of mariners, 
to which they trusted in vain ; now, perchance, it 
is the rusty one of some old pirate's ship or Nor- 
man fisherman, whose cable parted here two hun- 
dred years ago ; and now the best bower anchor of 
a Canton or a California ship, which has gone 
about her business. If the roadsteads of the 
spiritual ocean could be thus dragged, what rusty 
flukes of hope deceived and parted chain-cables of 
faith might again be windlassed aboard ! enough to 
sink the finder's craft, or stock new navies to the 
end of time. The bottom of the sea is strewn with 



352 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

anchors, some deeper and some shallower, and al- 
ternately covered and uncovered by the sand, per- 
chance with a small length of iron cable still at- 
tached, — to which where is the other end ? So 
many unconcluded tales to be continued another 
time. So, if we had diving-bells adapted to the 
spiritual deeps, we should see anchors with their 
cables attached, as thick as eels in vinegar, all 
wriggling vainly toward their holding-ground. 
But that is not treasure for us which another man 
has lost ; rather it is for us to seek what no other 
man has found or can find, — not be Chatham men 
dragging for anchors. 

The annals of this voracious beach ! who could 
write them, unless it were a shipwrecked sailor ? 
How many who have seen it have seen it only in 
the midst of danger and distress, the last strip of 
earth which their mortal eyes beheld. Think of 
the amount of suffering which a single strand has 
witnessed. The ancients would have represented it 
as a sea-monster with open jaws, more terrible than 
Scylla and Charybdis. An inhabitant of Truro 
told me that about a fortnight after the St. John 
was wrecked at Cohasset he found two bodies on 
the shore at the Clay Pounds. They were those 
of a man, and a corpulent woman. The man had 
thick boots on, though his head was off, but " it 
was alongside." It took the finder some weeks to 
get over the sight. Perhaps they were man and 
wife, and whom God had joined the ocean currents 
had not put asunder. Yet by what slight accidents 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 



353 



at first may they have been associated in their 
drifting. Some of the bodies of those passengers 
were picked up far out at sea, boxed up and sunk ; 
some brought ashore and buried. There are more 
consequences to a shipwreck than the underwriters 
notice. The Gulf Stream may return some to 
their native shores, or drop them in some out-of- 
the-way cave of Ocean, where time and the ele- 
ments will write new riddles with their bones. — 
But to return to land again. 

In this bank, tibove the clay, I counted in the 
summer two hundred holes of the bank swallow 
within a space six rods long, and there were at 
least one thousand old birds within three times 
that distance, twittering over the surf. I had never 
associated them in my thoughts with the beach be- 
fore. One little boy who had been a-birds-nest- 
ing had got eighty swallows' eggs for his share ! 
Tell it not to the Humane Society. There were 
many young birds on the clay beneath, which 
had tumbled out and died. Also there were many 
crow -blackbirds hopping about in the dry fields, 
and the upland plover were breeding close by the 
light-house. The keeper had once cut off one's 
wing while mowing, as she sat on her eggs there. 
This is also a favorite resort for gunners in the 
fall to shoot the golden plover. As around the 
shores of a pond are seen devil's-needles, butter- 
flies, etc., so here, to my surprise, I saw at the 
same season great devil's-needles of a si^e propor- 
tionably larger, or nearly as big as my finger, in- 
23 



354 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

• 

cessantly coasting up and down the edge of the 
bank, and butterflies also were hovering over it, 
and I never saw so many dorr -bugs and beetles 
of various kinds as strewed the beach. They had 
apparently flown over the bank in the night, and 
could not get up again, and some had perhaps 
fallen into the sea and were washed ashore. They 
may have been in part attracted by the light-house 
lamps. 

The Clay Pounds are a more fertile tract than 
usual. We saw some fine patches of roots and 
corn here. As generally on the Cape, the plants 
had little stalk or leaf, but ran remarkably to seed. 
The corn was hardly more than half as high as in 
the interior, yet the ears were large and full, and 
one farmer told us that he could raise forty bushels 
on an acre without manure, and sixty with it. The 
heads of the rye also were remarkably large. The 
shadbush (Amelanchier), beach plums, and blue- 
berries ( Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum), like the ap- 
ple-trees and oaks, were very dwarfish, spreading 
over the sand, but at the same time very fruitful. 
The blueberry was but an inch or two high, and its 
fruit often rested on the ground, so that you did 
not suspect the presence of the bushes, even on 
those bare hills, until you were treading on them. 
I thought that this fertility must be owing mainly 
to the abundance of moisture in the atmosphere, 
for I observed that what little grass there was was 
remarkably laden with dew in the morning, and in 
summer dense imprisoning fogs frequently last til] 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 355 

midday, turning one's beard into a wet napkin 
about his throat, and the oldest inhabitant may lose 
his way within a stone's throw of his house or be 
obliged to follow the beach for a guide. The 
brick house attached to the light-house was exceed- 
ingly damp at that season, and writing-paper lost 
all its stiffness in it. It was impossible to dry 
your towel after baching, or to press flowers with- 
out their mildewing. The air was so moist that 
we rarely wished to drink, though we could at all 
times taste the salt on our lips. Salt was rarely 
used at table, and our host told us that his cattle 
invariably refused it when it was offered them, 
they got so much with their grass and at every 
breath, but he said that a sick horse or one just 
from the country would sometimes take a hearty 
draught of salt water, and seemed to like it and be 
the better for it. 

It was surprising to see how much water was con- 
tained in the terminal bud of the sea-side golden 
rod, standing in the sand early in July, and also 
how turnips, beets, carrots, etc., flourished even in 
pure sand. A man travelling by the shore near 
there not long before us noticed something green 
growing in the pure sand of the beach, just at high 
water mark, and on approaching found it to be a bed 
of beets flourishing vigorously, probably from seed 
washed out of the Franklin. Also beets and tur- 
nip's came up in the sea-weed used for manure in 
many parts of the Cape. This suggests how vari- 
ous plants may have been dispersed over the world 



356 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

to distant islands and continents. Vessels, with 
seeds in their cargoes, destined for particular ports, 
where perhaps they were not needed, have been 
cast away on desolate islands, and though their 
crews perished, some of their seeds have been pre- 
served. Out of many kinds a few would find a soil 
and climate adapted to them, — become naturalized 
and perhaps drive out the native plants at last, and 
so fit the land for the habitation of man. It is an 
ill wind that blows nobody any good, and for the 
time lamentable shipwrecks may thus contribute a 
new vegetable to a continent's stock, and prove on 
the whole a lasting blessing to its inhabitants. Or 
winds and currents might effect the same without 
the intervention of man. What are the various 
succulent plants which grow on the beach but such 
beds of beets and turnips, sprung originally from 
seeds which perhaps were cast on the waters for 
this end, though we do not know the Franklin which 
they came out of? In ancient times some Mr. 
Bell (?) was sailing this way in his ark with seeds 
of rocket, saltwort, sandwort, beach-grass, samphire, 
tbay berry, poverty-grass, etc., all nicely labelled with 
directions, intending to establish a nursery some- 
where ; and did not a nursery get established, 
though he thought that he had failed ? 

About the light-house I observed in the summer 
the pretty Polygala polygama, spreading ray-wise 
flat on the ground, white pasture thistles ( Cirsium 
pumilum), and amid the shrubbery the Smilax 
glauca, which is commonly said not to grow so far 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 357 

north; near the edge of the banks about half a 
mile southward, the broom crowberry (Empetrum 
Conradii), for which Plymouth is the only locality 
in Massachusetts usually named, forms pretty green 
mounds four or five feet in diameter by one foot 
high, — soft springy beds for the wayfarer. I saw 
it afterward in Provincetown, but prettiest of all 
the scarlet pimpernel, or poor-man's weather-glass 
(Anagallis arvensis), greets you in fair weather on 
almost every square yard of sand. From Yar- 
mouth, I have received the Ghrysopsis falcata 
(golden aster), and Vaccinium stamineum (deer- 
berry or squaw huckleberry), with fruit not edible, 
sometimes as large as a cranberry (Sept. 7). 

The Highland Light-house, 1 where we were stay- 
ing, is a substantial-looking building of brick, painted 
white, and surmounted by an iron cap. Attached 
to it is the dwelling of the keeper, one story high, 
also of brick, and built by government. As we 
were going to spend the night in a light-house, we 
wished to make the most of so novel an experience, 
and therefore told our host that we would like to 
accompany him when he went to light up. At 
rather early candle-light he lighted a small Japan 
lamp, allowing it to smoke rather more than we 
like on ordinary occasions, and told us to follow 
him. He led the way first through his bedroom, 
which was placed nearest to the light-house, and 
then through a long, narrow, covered passage-way, 

i The light-house has since been rebuilt, and shows a Fresnel 
light. H. D. T. 



358 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

between whitewashed walls like a prison entry, into 
the lower part of the light-house, where many great 
butts of oil were arranged around ; thence we as- 
cended by a winding and open iron stairway, with a 
steadily increasing scent of oil and lamp-smoke, to a 
trap-door in an iron floor, and through this into the 
lantern. It was a neat building, with everything 
in apple-pie order, and no danger of anything rust- 
ing there for want of oil. The light consisted of 
fifteen argand lamps, placed within smooth con- 
cave reflectors twenty-one inches in diameter, and 
arranged in two horizontal circles one above the 
other, facing every way excepting directly down the 
Cape. These were surrounded, at a distance of two 
or three feet, by large plate-glass windows, which 
defied the storms, with iron sashes, on which rested 
the iron cap. All the iron work except the floor 
was painted white. And thus the light-house was 
completed. We walked slowly round in that nar- 
row space as the keeper lighted each lamp in suc- 
cession, conversing with him at the same moment 
that many a sailor on the deep witnessed the light- 
ing of the Highland Light. His duty was to fill 
and trim and light his lamps, and keep bright the 
reflectors. He filled them every morning, and 
trimmed them commonly once in the course of the 
night. He complained of the quality of the oil 
which was furnished. This house consumes about 
eight hundred gallons in a year, which cost not far 
from one dollar a gallon ; but perhaps a few lives 
would be saved if better oil were provided. Another 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 359 

light-house keeper said that the same proportion of 
winter-strained oil was sent to the southermost 
light-house in the Union as to the most northern. 
Formerly, when this light-house had windows with 
small and thin panes, a severe storm would some- 
times break the glass, and then they were obliged 
to put up a wooden shutter in haste to save their 
lights and reflectors, — and sometimes in tempests, 
when the mariner stood most in need of their guid- 
ance, they had thus nearly converted the light-house 
into a dark lantern, which emitted only a few feeble 
rays, and those commonly on the land or lee side. 
He spoke of the anxiety and sense of responsibility 
which he felt in cold and stormy nights in the win- 
ter ; when he knew that many a poor fellow was 
depending on him, and his lamps burned dimly, the 
oil being chilled. Sometimes he was obliged to 
warm the oil in a kettle- in his house at midnight, 
and fill his lamps over again, — for he could not 
have a fire in the light-house, it produced such a 
sweat on the windows. His successor told me that 
he could not keep too hot a fire in such a case. All 
this because the oil was poor. A government light- 
ing the mariners on its wintry coast with summer- 
strained oil, to save expense ! That were surely a 
summer-strained mercy. 

This keeper's successor, who kindly entertained 
me the next year, stated that one extremely cold 
night, when this and all the neighboring lights were 
burning summer oil, but he had been provident 
enough to reserve a little winter oil against emer- 



360 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

gencies, he was waked up with anxiety, and found 
that his oil was congealed, and his lights almost ex- 
tinguished ; and when, after many hours' exertion, 
he had succeeded in replenishing his reservoirs with 
winter oil at the wick end, and with difficulty had 
made them burn, he looked out and found that the 
other lights in the neighborhood, which were usually 
visible to him, had gone out, and he heard after- 
ward that the Pamet River and Billingsgate Lights 
also had been extinguished. 

Our host said that the frost, too, on the windows 
caused him much trouble, and in sultry summer 
nights the moths covered them and dimmed his 
lights ; sometimes even small birds flew against the 
thick plate glass, and were found on the ground 
beneath in the morning with their necks broken. 
In the spring of 1855 he found nineteen small yel- 
lowbirds, perhaps goldfinches or myrtle-birds thus 
lying dead around the light-house ; and sometimes 
in the fall he had seen where a golden plover had 
struck the glass in the night, and left the down and 
the fatty part of its breast on it. 

Thus he struggled, by every method, to keep his 
light shining before men. Surely the light-house 
keeper has a responsible, if an easy, office. When 
his lamp goes out, he goes out ; or, at most, only 
one such accident is pardoned. 

I thought it a pity that some poor student did 
not live there, to profit by all that light, since he 
would not rob the mariner. " Well," he said, " I 
do sometimes come up here and read the newspaper 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 361 

when they are noisy down below." Think of fif- 
teen argand lamps to read the newspaper by ! 
Government oil ! — light, enough, perchance, to 
read the Constitution by ! I thought that he should 
read nothing less than his Bible by that light. I 
had a classmate 1 who fitted for college by the lamps 
of a light-house, which was more light, we think, 
than the University afforded. 

When we had come down and walked a dozen 
rods from the light-house, we found that we could 
not get the full strength of its light on the narrow 
strip of land between it and the shore, being too 
low for the focus, and we saw only so many feeble 
and rayless stars ; but at forty rods inland we could 
see to read, though we were still indebted to only 
one lamp. Each reflector sent forth a separate 
" fan " of light, — one shone on the windmill, and 
one in the hollow, while the intervening spaces 
were in shadow. This light is said to be visible 
twenty nautical miles and more, from an observer 
fifteen feet about the level of the sea. We could 
see the revolving light at Race Point, the end of 
the Cape, about nine miles distant, and also the 
light on Long Point at the entrance of Province- 
town Harbor, and one of the distant Plymouth Har- 
bor Lights, across the Bay, nearly in a range with 
the last, like a star in the horizon. The keeper 
thought that the other Plymouth Light was con- 
cealed by being exactly in a range with the Long 

1 C. G. Thomas, who lately died in Cambridge, where he 
was commonly called Light-house Thomas. 



362 HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

Point Light. He told us that the mariner was 
sometimes led astray by a mackerel fisher's lantern, 
who was afraid of being run down in the night, or 
even by a cottager's light, mistaking them for some 
well-known light on the coast, and, when he dis- 
covered his mistake, was wont to curse the prudent 
fisher or the wakeful cottager without reason. 

Though it was once declared that Providence 
placed this mass of clay here on purpose to erect a 
light-house on, the keeper said that the light-house 
should have been erected half a mile farther south, 
where the coast begins to bend, and where the light 
could be seen at the same time with the Nauset 
Lights, and distinguished from them. They now 
talk of building one there. It happens that the 
present one is the more useless now, so near the 
extremity of the Cape, because other light-houses 
have since been erected there. 

Among the many regulations of the Light-house 
Board, hanging against the wall here, many of them 
excellent, perhaps, if there were a regiment sta- 
tioned here to attend to them, there is one requir- 
ing the keeper to keep an account of the number 
of vessels which pass his light during the day. 
But there are a hundred vessels in sight at once, 
steering in all directions, many on the very verge 
of the horizon, and he must have more eyes than 
Argus, and be a good deal farther-sighted, to tell 
which are passing his light. It is an employment 
in some respects best suited to the habits of the 
gulls which coast up and down here, and circle over 
the sea. 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 363 

I was told by the next keeper, that on the 8th of 
June following, a particularly clear and beautiful 
morning, he rose about half an hour before sunrise, 
and having a little time to spare, for his custom 
was to extinguish his lights at sunrise, walked down 
toward the shore to see what he might find. When 
he got to the edge of the bank he looked up, and, 
to his astonishment, saw the sun rising, and already 
part way above the horizon. Thinking that his 
clock was wrong, he made haste back, and though 
it was still too early by the clock, extinguished his 
lamps, and when he had got through and come 
down, he looked out the window, and, to his still 
greater astonishment, saw the sun just where it was 
before, two thirds above the horizon. He showed 
me where its rays fell on the wall across the room. 
He proceeded to make a fire, and when he had done 
there was the sun still at the same height. Where- 
upon, not trusting to his own eyes any longer, he 
called up his wife to look at it, and she saw it also. 
There were vessels in sight on the ocean, and their 
crews, too, he said, must have seen it, for its rays 
fell on them. It remained at that height for about 
fifteen minutes by the clock, and then rose as- usual, 
and nothing else extraordinary happened during 
that day. Though accustomed to the coast, he had 
never witnessed nor heard of such a phenomenon 
before. I suggested that there might have been a 
cloud in the horizon invisible to him, which rose 
with the sun, -and his clock was only as accurate as 
the average ; or perhaps, as he denied the possi- 



364 HENRY DAVID THO REACT. 

blity of this, it was such a looming of the sun as is 
said to occur at Lake Superior and elsewhere. Sir 
John Franklin, for instance, says in his Narrative, 
that when he was on the shore of the Polar Sea, 
the horizontal refraction varied so much one morn- 
ing that " the upper limb of the sun twice appeared 
at the horizon before it finally rose." 

He certainly must be a sun of Aurora to whom 
the sun looms, when there are so many millions to 
whom it glooms rather, or who never see it till an 
hour after it has risen. But it behooves us old 
stagers to keep our lamps trimmed and burning to 
the last, and not trust to the sun's looming. 

This keeper remarked that the centre of the flame 
should be exactly opposite the centre of the reflect- 
ors, and that accordingly, if he was not careful to 
turn down his wicks in the morning, the sun falling 
on the reflectors on the south side of the building 
would set fire to them, like a burning-glass, in the 
coldest day, and he would look up at noon and see 
them all lighted ! When your lamp is ready to give 
light, it is readiest to receive it, and the sun will 
light it. His successor said that he had never 
known them to blaze in such a case, but merely to 
smoke. 

I saw that this was a place of wonders. In a sea 
turn or shallow fog while I was there the next sum- 
mer, it being clear overhead, the edge of the bank 
twenty rods distant appeared like a mountain past- 
ure in the horizon. I was completely deceived by 
it, and I could then understand why mariners some- 



THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 365 

times ran ashore in such cases, especially in the 
night, supposing it to be far away, though they 
could see the land. Once since this, being in a 
large oyster boat two or three hundred miles from 
here, in a dark night, when there was a thin veil of 
mist on land and water, we came so near to run- 
ning on to the land before our skipper was aware of 
it, that the first warning was my hearing the sound 
of the surf under my elbow. I could almost have 
jumped ashore, and we were obliged to go about 
very suddenly to prevent striking. The distant 
light for which we were steering, supposing it a 
light-house five or six miles off, came through the 
cracks of a fisherman's bunk not more than six rods 
distant. 

The keeper entertained us handsomely in his soli- 
tary little ocean-house. He was a man of singular 
patience and intelligence, who, when our queries 
struck him, rung as clear as a bell in response. 
The light-house lamps a few feet distant shone full 
into my chamber, and made it as bright as day, 
so I knew exactly how the Highland Light bore all 
that night, and I was in no danger of being wrecked. 
Unlike the last, this was as still as a summer night. 
I thought as I lay there, half awake and half asleep, 
looking upward through the window at the lights 
above my head, how many sleepless eyes from far 
out on the Ocean stream — mariners of all nations 
spinning their yarns through the various watches 
of the night — were directed toward my couch. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 



INTRODUCTION. 

IN point of quantity Emerson's prose much ex- 
ceeds his poetry. That has been gathered into 
two small volumes and further sifted by the author 
into one ; the prose has been more frequently pub- 
lished, and at this date (1880) is comprised in three 
duodecimo volumes. Its form is either the oration 
or the essay, with one exception. English Traits 
records the observations of the writer after two 
journeys to England, and, while it may loosely be 
classed among essays, has certain distinctive feat- 
ures which separate it from the essays of the same 
writer; there is in it narrative, reminiscence, and 
description which make it more properly the note- 
book of a philosophic traveller. 

Under the term oration may be included all 
those writings of Emerson which were originally de- 
livered as lectures, addresses, orations before liter- 
ary and learned societies. During much of his lit- 
erary life he has used the platform as his first and 
chief mode of communicating what he has had to 
say, and the speeches there made have frequently 



INTRODUCTION. 367 

afterward been published in book form. It may be 
said of his essays as well as of his deliberate orations 
that the writer has never been wholly unmindful 
of an audience ; he has always been conscious that 
he was not merely delivering his mind but speak- 
ing directly to men. One is aware of a certain 
pointedness of speech which turns the writer into 
a speaker and the printed words into a sounding 
voice. Especially where one has heard Emerson 
does his impressive manner disclose itself in every 
sentence that one reads. In the orations, however, 
this directness of speech is most apparent, and their 
form is cast for it. The end of the speech is kept 
more positively before the speaker; there is also 
more distinct eloquence, that raising of the voice, 
by which the volume of an utterance is increased 
and a note of thought is prolonged. The form of 
the oration requires, moreover, a somewhat brisker 
manner and crisper sentences, for the speaker knows 
that the hearer has no leisure to pursue his way by 
winding clauses. 

Yet the spirit of the essay, the other great divi- 
sion of Emerson's writing, more distinctly enters 
into the oration. It is true that in whatever he 
writes Emerson feels his audience, but it is an 
audience of thinking men, and he is not unwilling 
to give his best thought and to surender himself in 
his work to the leadings of his own thought. Come 
with me, he seems to say to reader or listener, we 
will follow courageously in this theme whitherso- 
ever Thought leads us ; and thus in essay or ora- 



368 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

tion he seems less desirous of proving a proposition 
or stating roundly something which he has discov- 
ered than of entering upon a subject and letting his 
mind work freely upon it, gathering suggestions by 
the way and asking for its association with other 
subjects. Hence to one unaccustomed to the work- 
ing of Emerson's mind, a first reading of his writings 
seems to disclose only a series of lightly connected 
epigrams or searching questions and answers. The 
very titles of the essays seem mere suggestions and 
the end of an essay brings with it no conclusion. 
In the essay proper he allows himself more free- 
dom than in the oration, and his sentences do not 
converge so distinctly toward some demonstrable 
point. The discursive character of his thought is 
best fitted to the essay form, where it is not nec- 
essary to make provision beforehand for every idea 
which is to be entertained, and where the perfec- 
tion of form is in the graceful freedom from for- 
malism. The. oration may be described as one great 
sentence ; the essay as an unrestricted succession of 
little sentences. 

The single, apparently detached, thoughts impress 
one with a sense of the author's insight ; their very 
abruptness often lends a positiveness and authority 
to the statements and convictions, and a ready list- 
ener finds himself accepting them almost without 
consideration, so captivating are they in their bril- 
liant light. Yet something more than a ready list- 
ener is needed, if Emerson's writings are to be best 
used. They call for thought in the reader; they 



INTRODUCTION. 369 

demand that one should stop and ask questions, 
should translate what one has read into one's own 
ordinary speech, and inquire again if it is true. 
They are excellent tonics for the mind, but taken 
heedlessly they are dangerous. The danger is in 
the careless use, for carelessness makes half truths 
of what has been said frankly and fearlessly to the 
open mind. No one should read Emerson who is 
not willing to have his own weakness disclosed to 
him, and who is not prepared also to test what he 
finds by a standard which is above both writer 
and reader. 

As one reads steadily he is likely to note certain 
mental characteristics in the writer which mark all 
his work. One or two of these characteristics have 
already been mentioned ; a more important and 
pervading one is his loyalty to idealism, and his be- 
lief in the power of the soul to work out a noble 
place for itself. In his oration on Literary Ethics 
he says of the scholar: " He must be a solitary, la- 
borious, modest, and charitable soul. He must em- 
brace solitude as a bride. He must have his glees 
and his glooms alone. His own estimate must be 
measure enough, his own praise reward enough for 
him. And why must the student be solitary and 
silent ? That he may become acquainted with his 
thoughts. If he pines in a lonely place, hankering 
for the crowd, for display, he is not in the lonely 
place ; his heart is in the market ; he does not see, 
he does not hear, he does not think. But go cher- 
ish your soul ; expel companions ; set your habits to 
24 



370 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

a life of solitude ; then will the faculties rise fair 
and full within, like forest trees and field flowers ; 
you will have results, which, when you meet your 
fellow-men, you can communicate, and they will 
gladly receive. Do not go into solitude only that 
you may presently come into public. Such solitude 
denies itself, is public and stale. The public can 
get public experience, but they wish the scholar to 
replace to them those private, sincere, divine expe- 
riences of which they have been defrauded by 
dwelling in the street. It is the noble, manlike, just 
thought which is the superiority demanded of you, 
and not crowds, but solitude, confers this elevation. 
Not insulation of place, but independence of spirit 
is essential, and it is only as the garden, the cottage, 
the forest, and the rock are a sort of mechanical 
aids to this that they are of value. Think alone 

and all places are friendly and sacred Fatal 

to the man of letters, fatal to man, is the lust of 
display, the seeming that unmakes our being. A 
mistake of the main end to which they labor is in- 
cident to literary men, who, dealing with the organ 
of language, — the subtlest, strongest, and longest- 
lived of man's creation, and only fitly used as the 
weapon of thought and of justice, — learn to enjoy 
the pride of playing with this splendid engine, but 
rob it of its almightiness by failing to work with it. 
Extricating themselves from the tasks of the world, 
the world revenges itself by exposing, at every 
turn, the folly of these incomplete, pedantic, use- 
less, ghastly creatures. The scholar will feel that 



INTRODUCTION. 371 

the richest romance, — the noblest fiction that was 
ever woven, — the heart and soul of beauty, — lies 
inclosed in human life. Itself of surpassing value, 
it is also the richest material for his creations. 
How shall he know its secrets of tenderness, of ter- 
ror, of will, and of fate ? How can he catch and 
keep the strain of upper music that peals from it ? 
Its laws are concealed under the details of daily ac- 
tion. All action is an experiment upon them. He 
must bear his share of the common load. He must 
work with men in houses, and not with their names 
in books. His needs, appetites, talents, affections, 
accomplishments are keys that open to him the 
beautiful museum of human life. Why should he 
read it as an Arabian tale, and not know in his own 
beating bosom its sweet and smart ? Out of love 
and hatred ; out of earnings and borrowings, and 
lendings and losses ; out of sickness and pain ; out 
of wooing and worshipping ; out of travelling, and 
voting, and watching, and caring ; out of disgrace 
and contempt ; comes our tuition in the serene and 
beautiful laws. Let him not slur his lesson ; let 
him learn it by heart. Let him endeavor, exactly, 
bravely, and cheerfully, to solve the problem of 
that life which is set before him. And this, by 
punctual action, and not by promises or dreams. 
Believing, as in God, in the presence and favor of 
the grandest influences, let him deserve that favor, 
and learn how to receive and use it, by fidelity, also, 

to the lower observances The man of genius 

should occupy the whole space between God or 



372 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

pure mind and the multitude of uneducated men. 
He must draw from the infinite Reason, on one 
side ; and he must penetrate into the heart and 
sense of the crowd, on the other. From one, he 
must draw his strength ; to the other he must owe 
his aim. The one yokes him to the real, the other 
to the apparent. At one pole is Reason, at the 
other Common Sense. If he be defective at either 
extreme of the scale, his philosophy will seem low 
and utilitarian ; or it will appear too vague and in- 
definite for the uses of life." 

In some such terms as these one may define 
Emerson's own attitude toward his work. The 
openness of his mind to new thought, his loyalty to 
high ideals, his eager advocacy of the real, and his 
insight into the nature of things have separated him 
and made his words often unintelligible, but the se- 
renity of his life and the courage of his speech have 
endeared him to men, even when they have thought 
him fatally oblivious to some aspects of human life. 
The essay on Behavior is taken from The Conduct 
of Life ; that on Boohs from Society and Solitude. 



I. 

BEHAVIOR. 

Grace, Beauty, and Caprice 

Build this golden portal ; 

Graceful women, chosen men, 

Dazzle every mortal : 

Their sweet and lofty countenance 

His enchanting food ; 

He need not go to them, their forms 

Beset his solitude. 

He looketh seldom in their face, 

His eyes explore the ground, 

The green grass is a looking-glass 

Whereon their traits are found. 

Little he says to them, 

So dances his heart in his breast, 

Their tranquil mien bereaveth him 

Of wit, of words, of rest. 

Too weak to win , too fond to shun 

The tyrants of his doom, 

The much-deceived Endymion 

Slips behind a tomb. 

The soul which animates Nature is not less sig- 
nificantly published in the figure, movement, and 
gesture of animated bodies, than in its last vehicle 
of articulate speech. This silent and subtile lan- 
guage is Manners ; not what, but how. Life ex- 
presses. A statue has no tongue, and needs none. 
Good tableaux do not need declamation. Nature 
tells every secret once. Yes, but in man she tells 



374 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

it all the time, by form, attitude, gesture, mien, 
face, and parts of the face, and by the whole action 
of the machine. The visible carriage or action of 
the individual, as resulting from his organization 
and his will combined, we call manners. What 
are they but thought entering the hands and feet, 
controlling the movements of the body, the speech 
and behavior ? 

There is always a best way of doing everything, 
if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy 
ways of doing things ; each once a stroke of genius 
or of love, — now repeated and hardened into usage. 
They form at last a rich varnish, with which the 
routine of life is washed, and its details adorned. 
If they are superficial, so are the dewdrops which 
give such a depth to the morning meadows. Man- 
ners are very communicable ; men catch them from 
each other. Consuelo, in the romance, 1 boasts of 
the lessons she had given the nobles in manners, on 
the stage ; and, in real life, Talma 2 taught Napo- 
leon the arts of behavior. Genius invents fine 
manners, which the baron and the baroness copy 
very fast, and, by the advantage of a palace, better 
the instruction. They stereotype the lesson they 
have learned into a mode. 

The power of manners is incessant, — an element 
as unconcealable as fire. The nobility cannot in 
any country be disguised, and no more in a repub- 
lic or a democracy than in a kingdom. No man 

1 Of the same name, by George Sand. 

2 A celebrated actor. 



BEHAVIOR. 375 

can resist their influence. There are certain man- 
ners which are learned in good society, of that 
force, that, if a person have them, he or she must 
be considered, and is everywhere welcome, though 
without beauty, or wealth, or genius. Give a boy 
address and accomplishments, and you give him the 
mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes. 
He has not the trouble of earning or owning them ; 
they solicit him to enter and possess. We send 
girls of a timid, retreating disposition to the board- 
ing-school, to the riding-school, to the ball-room, or 
wheresoever they can come into acquaintance and 
nearness of leading persons of their own sex ; where 
they might learn address, and see it near at hand. 
The power of a woman of fashion to lead, and also 
to daunt and repel, derives from their belief that 
she knows resources and behaviors not known to 
them ; but when these have mastered her secret, 
they learn to confront her, and recover their self- 
possession. 

Every day bears witness to their gentle rule. 
People who would obtrude, now do not obtrude. 
The mediocre circle learns to demand that which 
belongs to a high state of nature or of culture. 
Your manners are always under examination, and 
by committees little suspected, — a police in cit- 
izens' clothes, — ■ but are awarding or denying you 
very high prizes when you least think of it. 

"We talk much of utilities, but 't is our manners 
that associate us. In hours of business, we go to 
him who knows, or has, or does this or that which we 



376 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

want, and we do not let our taste or feeling stand 
in the way. But this activity over, we return to 
the indolent state, and wish for those we can be at 
ease with ; those who will go where we go, whose 
manners do not offend us, whose social tone chimes 
with ours. When we reflect on their persuasive 
and cheering force ; how they recommend, prepare, 
and draw people together ; how, in all clubs, man- 
ners make the members ; how manners make the 
fortune of the ambitious youth ; that, for the most 
part, his manners marry him, and, for the most 
part, he marries manners ; when we think what 
keys they are, and to what secrets ; what high 
lessons and inspiring tokens of character they con- 
vey ; and what divination is required in us, for the 
reading of this fine telegraph, we see what range 
the subject has, and what relations to convenience, 
power, and beauty. 

Their first service is very low, — when they are 
the minor morals : but 't is the beginning of civility, 
— to make us, I mean, endurable to each other. 
We prize them for their rough-plastic, abstergent 
force ; to get people out of the quadruped state ; to 
get them washed, clothed,- and set up on end; to 
slough their animal husks and habits; compel them 
to be clean ; overawe their spite and meanness, 
teach them to stifle the base, and choose the gener- 
ous expression, and make them know how much 
happier the generous behaviors are. 

Bad behavior the laws cannot reach. Society is 
infested with rude, cynical, restless, and frivolous 



BEHAVIOR. 377 

persons who prey upon the rest, and whom a public 
opinion concentrated into good manners — forms 
accepted by the sense of all — can reach : the con- 
tradictors and railers at public and private tables, 
who are like terriers, who conceive it the duty of a 
dog of honor to growl at any passer-by, and do the 
honors of the house by barking him out of sight : 
— I have seen men who neigh like a horse when 
you contradict them, or say something which they 
do not understand : — then the overbold, who make 
their own invitation to your hearth ; the persever- 
ing talker, who gives you his society in large, satu- 
rating doses ; the pitiers of themselves, — a perilous 
class ; the frivolous Asmodeus, who relies on you 
to find him in ropes of sand to twist ; the mono- 
tones ; in short, every stripe of absurdity ; — these 
are social inflictions which the magistrate cannot 
cure or defend you from, and which must be in- 
trusted to the restraining force of custom, and prov- 
erbs, and familiar rules of behavior impressed on 
young people in their school-days. 

In the hotels on the banks of the Mississipi, they 
print, or used to print, among the rules of the 
house, that "no gentleman can be permitted to 
come to the public table without his coat " ; and in 
the same country, in the pews of the churches, little 
placards plead with the worshipper against the fury 
of expectoration. Charles Dickens self-sacrificingly 
undertook the reformation of our American man- 
ners in unspeakable particulars. I think the lesson 
was not quite lost ; that it held bad manners up, so 



378 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

that the churls could see the deformity. Unhappily, 
the book had its own deformities. It ought not to 
need to print in a reading-room a caution to stran- 
gers not to speak loud ; nor to persons who look 
over fine engravings, that they should be handled 
like cobwebs and butterflies' wings ; nor to persons 
who look at marble statues, that they shall not 
smite them with canes. But, even in the perfect 
civilization of this city, such cautions are not quite 
needless in the Athenaeum and City Library. 

Manners are factitious, and grow out of circum- 
stance as well as out of character. If you look at 
the pictures of patricians and of peasants, of differ- 
ent periods and countries, you will see how well 
they match the same classes in our towns. The 
modern aristocrat not only is well drawn in Titian's 
Venetian doges, and in Roman coins and statues, 
but also in the pictures which Commodore Perry 
brought home of dignitaries in Japan. Broad lands 
and great interests not only arrive to such heads as 
can manage them, but form manners of power. A 
keen eye, too, will see nice gradations of rank, or 
see in the manners the degree of homage the party 
is wont to receive. A prince who is accustomed 
every day to be courted and deferred to by the 
highest grandees, acquires a corresponding expec- 
tation, and a becoming mode of receiving and re- 
plying to this homage. 

There are always exceptional people and modes. 
English grandees affect to be farmers. Claverhouse 
is a fop, and, under the finish of dress, and levity of 



BEHAVIOR. 379 

behavior, hides the terror of his war. But nature 
and Destiny are honest, and never fail to leave their 
mark, to hang out a sign for each and for every 
quality. It is much to conquer one's face, and per- 
haps the ambitious youth thinks he has got the 
whole secret when he has learned that disengaged 
manners are commanding. Don't be deceived by a 
facile exterior. Tender men sometimes have strong 
wills. We had, in Massachusetts, an old statesman, 
who had sat all his life in courts and in chairs of 
state, without overcoming an extreme irritability 
of face, voice, and bearing ; when he spoke, his 
voice would not serve him ; it cracked, it broke, it 
wheezed, it piped ; little cared he ; he knew that 
it had got to pipe, or wheeze, or screech his argu- 
ment and his indignation. When he sat down, 
after speaking, he seemed in a sort of fit, and held 
on to his chair with both hands; but underneath 
all this irritability was a puissant will, firm, and 
advancing, and a memory in which lay in order 
and method like geologic strata every fact of his 
history, and under the control of his will. 

Manners are partly factitious, but, mainly, there 
must be capacity for culture in the blood. Else all 
culture is vain. The obstinate prejudice in favor of 
blood, which lies at the base of the feudal and mon- 
archical fabrics of the Old World, has some reason 
in common experience. Every man — mathema- 
tician, artist, soldier, or merchant — looks with con- 
fidence for some traits and talents in his own child, 
which he would not dare to presume in the child of 



380 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

a stranger. The Orientalists are very orthodox on 
this point. "Take a thorn-bush," said the emir 
Abdel-Kader, " and sprinkle it for a whole year 
with water ; it will yield nothing but thorns. ' Take 
a date-tree, leave it without culture, and it will al- 
ways produce dates. Nobility is the date-tree, and 
the Arab populace is a bush of thorns." 

A main fact in the history of manners is tne won- 
derful expressiveness of the human body. If it 
were made of glass, or of air, and the thoughts were 
written on steel tablets within, it could not pub- 
lish more truly its meaning than now. Wise men 
read very sharply all your private history in your 
look and gait and behavior. The whole economy 
of nature is bent on expression. The tell-tale body 
is all tongues. Men are like Geneva watches with 
crystal faces which expose the whole movement. 
They carry the liquor of life flowing up and down 
in these beautiful bottles, and announcing to the 
curious how it is with them. The face and eyes 
reveal what the spirit is doing, how old it is, what 
aims it has. The eyes indicate the antiquity of 
,the soul, or, through how many forms it has already 
ascended. It almost violates the proprieties, if we 
say above the breath here, what the confessing eyes 
do not hesitate to utter to every street passenger. 

Man cannot fix his eye on the sun, and so far 
seems imperfect. In Siberia, a late traveller found 
men who could see the satellites of Jupiter with their 
unarmed eye. In some respects the animals excel 
us. The birds have a longer sight, beside the ad- 



BEHAVIOR. 381 

vantage by their wings of a higher observatory. A 
cow can bid her calf, by secret signal, probably of 
the eye, to run away, or to lie down and hide itself. 
The jockeys say of certain horses, that " they look 
over the whole ground." The outdoor life, and 
hunting, and labor, give equal vigor to the human 
eye. A farmer looks out at you as strong as the 
horse ; his eye-beam is like the stroke of a staff. An 
eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or 
can insult like hissing or kicking ; or, in its altered 
mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart 
dance with joy. 

The eye obeys exactly the action of the mind. 
"When a thought strikes us, the eyes fix, and remain 
gazing at a distance ; in enumerating the names of 
persons or of countries, as France, Germany, Spain, 
Turkey, the eyes wink at each new name. There 
is no nicety of learning sought by the mind which 
the eyes do not vie in acquiring. " An artist, " 
said Michel Angelo, " must ' have his measuring 
tools not in the hand, but in the eye " ; and there 
is no end to the catalogue of its performances, 
whether in indolent vision (that of health and 
beauty), or in strained vision (that of art and labor). 

Eyes are bold as lions, — roving, running, leap- 
ing, here and there, far and near. They speak all 
languages. They wait for no introduction ; they are 
no Englishmen ; ask no leave of age or rank ; they 
respect neither poverty nor riches, neither learning 
nor power, nor virtue, nor sex, but intrude, and come 
again, and go through and through you, in a mo- 



382 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

ment of time. What inundation of life and thought 
is discharged from one soul into another, through 
them ! The glance is natural magic. The myste- 
rious communication established across a house be- 
tween two entire strangers, moves all the springs 
of wonder. The communication by the glance is 
in the greatest part not subject to the control of 
the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity of nat- 
ure. We look into the eyes to know if this other 
form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but 
make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there. 
The revelations are sometimes terrific. The con- 
fession of a low, usurping devil is there made, and 
the observer shall seem to feel the stirring of owls, 
and bats, and horned hoofs, where he looked for in- 
nocence and simplicity. 'T is remarkable, too, that 
the spirit that appears at the windows of the house 
does at once invest himself in a new form of his 
own, to the mind of the beholder. 

The eyes of men converse as much as their 
tongues, with the advantage, that the ocular dialect 
needs no dictionary, but is understood all the world 
over. When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue 
another, a practised man relies on the language of 
the first. If the man is off his centre, the eyes 
show it. You can read in the eyes of your com- 
panion, whether your argument hits him, though 
his tongue will not confess it. There is a look by 
which a man shows he is going to say a good thing, 
and a look when he has said it. Vain and fogrotten 
are all the fine offers and offices of hospitality, if 



BEHAVIOR. 383 

there is no holiday in the eye. How many furtive 
inclinations avowed by the eye, though dissembled 
by the lips ! One comes away from a company, 
in which, it may easily happen, he has said nothing, 
and no important remark has been addressed to 
him, and yet, if in sympathy with the society, he 
shall not have a sense of this fact, such a stream of 
life has been flowing into him, and out from him, 
through the eyes. There are eyes, to be sure, that 
give no more admission into the man than blue- 
berries. Others are liquid and deep, — wells that 
a man might fall into ; — others are aggressive and 
devouring, seem to call out the police, take all too 
much notice, and require crowded Broadways, and 
the security of millions, to protect individuals against 
them. The military eye I meet, now darkly spark- 
ling under clerical, now under rustic, brows. 'T is 
the city of Laceda^mon ; 't is a stack of bayonets. 
There are asking eyes, asserting eyes, prowling 
eyes ; and eyes full of fate, — some of good, and 
some of sinister, omen. The alleged power to charm 
down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power be- 
hind the eye. It must be a victory achieved in the 
will, before it can be signified in the eye. 'T is 
very certain that each man carries in his eye the 
exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of 
men, and we are always learning to read it. A 
complete man should need no auxiliaries to his per- 
sonal presence. Whoever looked on him would 
consent to his will, being certified that his aims 
were generous and universal. The reason why 



384 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at 
the bottom of our eye. 

If the organ of sight is such a vehicle of power, 
the other features have their own. A man finds 
room in the few square inches of the face for the 
traits of all his ancestors ; for the expression of 
all his history, and his wants. The sculptor, and 
Winckelmann, and Lavater, will tell you how sig- 
nificant a feature is the nose ; how its form expresses 
strength or weakness of will and good or bad tem- 
per. The nose of Julius Caesar, of Dante,, and of 
Pitt suggest " the terrors of the beak." What re- 
finement, and what limitations, the teeth betray ! 
" Beware you don't laugh," said the wise mother, 
" for then you show all your faults." 

Balzac left in manuscript a chapter, which he 
called " Theorie de la demarche" in which he says : 
" The look, the voice, the respiration, and the at- 
titude or walk are identical. But, as it has not 
been given to man, the power to stand guard, at 
once, over these four different simultaneous expres- 
sions of his thought, watch that one which speaks 
out the truth, and you will know the whole man." 

Palaces interest us mainly in the exhibition of 
manners, which in the idle and expensive society 
dwelling in them are raised to a high art. The 
maxim of courts is that manner is power. A calm 
and resolute bearing, a polished speech, and em- 
bellishment of trifles, and the art of hiding all un- 
comfortable feeling, are essential to the courtier; 
and Saint Simon, and Cardinal de Retz, and Roe- 



BEHA VIOR. 385 

derer, and an encyclopedia of " Memoires," will in- 
struct you, if you wish, in those potent secrets. 
Thus, it is a point of pride with kings to remember 
faces and names. It is reported of one prince, that 
his head had the air of leaning downwards, in order 
not to humble the crowd. There are people who 
come in ever like a child with a piece of good news. 
It was said of the late Lord Holland, that he always 
came down to breakfast with the air of a man who 
had just met with some signal good fortune. In 
" Notre Dame " the grandee took his place on the 
dais, with the look of one who is thinking of some- 
thing else. But we must not peep and eavesdrop 
at palace-doors. 

Fine manners need the support of fine manners 
in others. A scholar may be a well-bred man, or 
he may not. The enthusiast is introduced to pol- 
ished scholars in society, and is chilled and silenced 
by finding himself not in their element. They all 
have somewhat which he has not, and, it seems, 
ought to have. But if he finds the scholar apart 
from his companions, it is then the enthusiast's 
turn, and the scholar has no defence, but must deal 
on his terms. Now they must fight the battle out 
on their private strength. -What is the talent of 
that character so common, — the successful man of 
the world, — in all marts, senates, and drawing- 
rooms ? Manners : manners of power ; sense to 
see his advantage, and manners up to it. See him 
approach his man. He knows that troops behave 
as they are handled at first ; — that is his cheap 
25 



386 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

secret ; just what happens to every two persons who 
meet on any affair, one instantly perceives that he 
has the key of the situation, that his will compre- 
hends the other's will, as the cat does the mouse ; 
and he has only to use courtesy, and furnish good- 
natured reasons to his victim to cover up the chain, 
lest he be shamed into resistance. 

The theatre in which this science of manners has 
a formal importance is not with us a court, but 
dress-circles, wherein, after the close of the day's 
business, men and women meet at leisure, for mut- 
ual entertainment, in ornamented drawing-rooms. 
Of course, it has every variety of attraction and 
merit ; but, to earnest persons, to youths or maidens 
who have great objects at heart, we cannot extol it 
highly. A well-dressed, talkative company, where 
each is bent to amuse the other, — yet the high- 
born Turk who came hither fancied that every 
woman seemed to be suffering for a chair ; that all 
talkers were brained and exhausted by the de- 
oxygenated air ; it spoiled the best persons : it put 
all on stilts. Yet here are the secret biographies 
written and read. The aspect of that man is re- 
pulsive ; I do not wish to deal with him. The 
other is irritable, shy, and on his guard. The youth 
looks humble and manly : I choose him. Look on 
this woman. There is not beauty, nor brilliant say- 
ings, nor distinguished power to serve you ; but all 
see her gladly ; her whole air and impression are 
healthful. Here come the sentimentalists, and the 
invalids. Here is Elise, who caught cold in coming 



BEHAVIOR. 387 

into the world, and has always increased it since. 
Here are creep-mouse manners ; and thievish man- 
ners. ft Look at Northcote," said Fuseli ; " he 
looks like a rat that has seen a cat." In the shal- 
low company, easily excited, easily tired, here is 
the columnar Bernard : the Alleghanies do not ex- 
press more repose than his behavior. Here are the 
sweet, following eyes of Cecile : it seemed always 
that she demanded the heart. Nothing can be more 
excellent in kind than the Corinthian grace of Ger- 
trude's manners, and yet Blanche, who has no man- 
ners, has better manners than she ; for the move- 
ments of Blanche are the sallies of a spirit which 
is sufficient for the moment, and she can afford to 
express every thought by instant action. 

Manners have been somewhat cynically defined 
to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a 
distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do 
not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her at- 
tentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and, 
if you do not belong to it, resists and sneers at you ; 
or quietly drops you. The first weapon enrages the 
party attacked ; the second is still more effective, 
but is not to be resisted, as the date of the transac- 
tion is not easily found. People grow up and grow 
old under this infliction, and never suspect the truth, 
ascribing the solitude which acts on them very in- 
juriously to any cause but the right one. 

The basis of good manners is self-reliance. Ne- 
cessity is the law of all who are not self-possessed. 
Those who are not self-possessed obtrude and pain 



388 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

us. Some men appear to feel that they belong to a 
Pariah caste. They fear to offend, they bend aDd 
apologize, and walk through life with a timid step. 

As we sometimes dream that we are in a well- 
dressed company without any coat, so Godfrey acts 
ever as if he suffered from some mortifying circum- 
stance. The hero should find himself at home, wher- 
ever he is ; should impart comfort by his own secu- 
rity and good-nature to all beholders. The hero is 
suffered to be himself. A person of strong mind 
comes to perceive that for him an immunity is se- 
cured so long as he renders to society that service 
which is native and proper to him, — an immunity 
from all the observances, yea, and duties, which so- 
ciety so tyrannically imposes on the rank and file of 
its members. " Euripides," says Aspasia, " has not 
the fine manners of Sophocles : but," she adds, 
good-humoredly, " the movers and masters of our 
souls have surely a right to throw out their limbs 
as carelessly as they please on the world that be- 
longs to them, and before the creatures they have 
animated." 1 

Manners require time, as nothing is more vulgar 
than haste. Friendship should be surrounded with 
ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into cor- 
ners. Friendship requires more time than poor 
busy men can usually command. Here comes to me 
Roland, with a delicacy of sentiment leading and in- 
wrapping him like a divine cloud or holy ghost. 
*T is a great destitution to both that this should not 
1 Landor, Pericles and Aspasia. 



BEHAVIOR. 389 

be entertained with large leisures, but contrariwise 
should be balked by importunate affairs. 

But through this lustrous -varnish, the reality is 
ever shining. 'Tis hard to keep the what from 
breaking through this pretty painting of the how. 
The core will come to the surface. Strong will and 
keen perception overpower old manners, and create 
new ; and the thought of the present moment has 
a greater value than all the past. In persons of 
character we do not remark manners, because of 
their instantaneousness. We are surprised by the 
thing done, out of all power to watch the way of 
it. Yet nothing is more charming than to recog- 
nize the great style which runs through the action 
of such. People masquerade before us in their fort- 
unes, titles, offices, and connections, as academic or 
civil presidents, or senators, or professors, or great 
lawyers, and impose on the frivolous, and a good 
deal on each other, by these fames. At least, it is 
a point of prudent good manners to treat these rep- 
utations tenderly, as if they were merited. But the 
sad realist knows these fellows at a glance, and 
they know him ; as when in Paris the chief of the 
police enters a ball-room, so many diamonded pre- 
tenders shrink and make themselves as inconspicu- 
ous as they can, or give him a supplicating look as 
they pass. " I had received," said a sibyl, — "I 
had received at birth the fatal gift of penetration " ; 
and these Cassandras are always born. 
-/• Manners impress as they indicate real power. 
A man who is sure of his point carries a broad and 



390 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

contented expression, which everybody reads. And 
you cannot rightly train one to an air and manner, 
except by making him the kind of man of whom 
that manner is the natural expression. Nature for- 
ever puts a premium on reality. What is done for 
effect is seen to be done for effect ; what is done 
for love is felt to be done for love. A man inspires 
affection and honor, because he was not lying in 
wait for these. The things of a man for which we 
visit him, were done in the dark and the cold. A 
little integrity is better than any career. So deep 
are the sources of this surface-action, that even the 
size of your companion seems to vary with his 
freedom of thought. Not only is he larger, when 
at ease, and his thoughts generous, but everything 
around him becomes variable with expression. No 
carpenter's rule, no rod and chain, will measure 
the dimensions of any house or house-lot : go into 
the house : if the proprietor is constrained and de- 
ferring, 't is of no importance how large his house, 
how beautiful his grounds, — you quickly come to 
the end of all ; but if the man is self-possessed, 
happy, and at home, his house is deep-founded, in- 
definitely large and interesting, the roof and dome 
buoyant as the sky. Under the humblest roof, the 
commonest person in plain clothes sits there mas- 
sive, cheerful, yet formidable like the Egyptian 
colossi. 

Neither Aristotle, nor Leibnitz, nor Junius, nor 
Champollion has set down the grammar-rules of 
of this dialect, older than Sanscrit ; but they who 



BEHAVIOR. 391 

cannot yet read English, can read this. Men take 
each other's measure, when they meet for the first 
time, — and every time they meet. How do they 
get this rapid knowledge, even before they speak, 
of each other's power and dispositions ? One would 
say that the persuasion of their speech is not in 
what they say, — or, that men do not convince by 
their argument, — but by their personality, by who 
they are, and what they said and did heretofore. 
A man already strong is listened to, and everything 
he says is applauded. Another opposes him with 
sound argument, but the argument is scouted, until 
by and by it gets into the mind of some weighty 
person ; then it begins to tell on the community. 

Self-reliance is the basis of behavior, as it is the 
guaranty that the powers are not squandered in too 
much demonstration. In this country, where school 
education is universal, we have a superficial culture, 
and a profusion of reading and writing and expres- 
sion. We parade our nobilities in poems and ora- 
tions, instead of working them up into happiness. 
There is a whisper out of the ages to him who can 
understand it, — " Whatever is known to thyself 
alone has always very great value." There is some 
reason to believe that, when a man does no,t write 
his poetry, it escapes by other vents through him, 
instead of the one vent of writing; clings to his 
form and manners, whilst poets have often nothing 
poetical about them except their verses. Jacobi 
said, that " when a man has fully expressed his 
thought, he has somewhat less possession of it." 



392 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

One would say, the rule is, — What a man is ir- 
resistibly urged to say, helps him and us. In ex- 
plaining his thought to others, he explains it to 
himself: but when he opens it for show, it corrupts 
him. 

Society is the stage on which manners are shown ; 
novels are their literature. Novels are the journal 
or record of manners ; and the new importance of 
these books derives from the fact that the novelist 
begins to penetrate the surface, and treat this part 
of life more worthily. The novels used to be all 
alike, and had a quite vulgar tone. The novels 
used to lead us on to- a foolish interest in the fort- 
unes of the boy and girl they described. The boy 
was to be raised from a humble to a high position. 
He was in want of a wife and a castle, and the ob- 
ject of the story was to supply him with one or 
both. We watched sympathetically, step by step, 
his climbing, until, at last, the point is gained, the 
wedding-day is fixed, and we follow the gala proces- 
sion home to the bannered portal, when the doors 
are slammed in our face, and the poor reader is left 
outside in the cold, not enriched by so much as an 
idea, or a virtuous impulse. 

But the victories of character are instant, and vic- 
tories for all. Its greatness enlarges all. ( We are 
fortified by every heroic anecdote. The novels are 
as useful as Bibles, if they teach you the secret, 
that the best of life is conversation, and the greatest 
success is confidence, or perfect understanding be- 
tween sincere people. 'T is a French definition of 



BEHAVIOR. 393 

friendship, rien que s'entendre, good understanding. 
The highest compact we can make with our fellow 
is, — " Let there be truth between us two for ever- 
more." That is the charm in all good novels, as it 
is the charm in all good histories, that the heroes 
mutually understand, from the first, and deal loyally 
and with a profound trust in each other. It is sub- 
lime to feel and say of another, I need never meet, 
or speak, or write to him : we need not reinforce 
ourselves, or send tokens of remembrance : I rely 
on him as on myself : if he did thus, or thus, I know 
it was right. 

In all the superior people I have met, I notice 
directness, truth spoken more truly, as if everything 
of obstruction, of malformation, had been trained 
away. What have they to conceal ? What have 
they to exhibit ? Between simple and noble per- 
sons there is always a quick intelligence : they rec- 
ognize at sight, and meet on a better ground than 
the talents and skills they may chance to possess, 
namely, on sincerity and uprightness. For, it is 
not what talents or genius a man has, but how he 
is to his talents, that constitutes friendship and char- 
acter. The man that stands by himself, the uni- 
verse stands by him also. It is related of the monk 
Basle, that, being excommunicated by the Pope, he 
was, at his death, sent in charge of an angel to 
find a fit place of suffering in hell ; but, such was 
the eloquence and good-humor of the monk, that 
wherever he went he was received gladly, and civ- 
illy treated, even by the most uncivil angels : and, 



394 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

when he came to discourse with them, instead of 
contradicting or forcing him, they took his part, and 
adopted his manners : and even good angels came 
from far, to see him, and take up their abode with 
him. The angel that was sent to find a place of 
torment for him attempted to remove him to a 
worse pit, but with no better success ; for such was 
the contented spirit of the monk, that he found 
something to praise in every place and company, 
though in hell, and made a kind of heaven of it. 
At last the escorting angel returned with his pris- 
oner to them that sent him, saying that no phlege- 
thon could be found that would burn him ; for that 
in whatever condition, Basle remained incorrigibly 
Basle. The legend says, his sentence was remitted, 
and he was allowed to go into heaven, and was 
canonized as a saint. 

There is a stroke of magnanimity in the corre- 
spondence of Bonaparte with his brother Joseph, 
when the latter was King of Spain, and complained 
that he missed in Napoleon's letters the affection- 
ate tone which had marked their childish corre- 
spondence. "I am sorry," replies Napoleon, "you 
think you shall find your' brother again only in the 
Elysian Fields. It is natural, that at forty, he 
should not feel towards you as he did at twelve. 
But his feelings towards you have greater truth and 
strength. His friendship has the features of his 
mind." 

How much we forgive in those who yield us the 
rare spectacle of heroic manners ! We will pardon 



BEHAVIOR. 395 

them the want of books, of arts, and even of the 
gentler virtues. How tenaciously we remember 
them! Here is a lesson which I brought along 
with me in boyhood from the Latin School, and 
which ranks with the best of Roman anecdotes. 
Marcus Scauras was accused by Quintus Yarius 
Hispanus, that he had excited the allies to take 
arms against the Republic. But he, full of firm- 
ness and gravity, defended himself in this manner : 
"Quintus Yarius Hispanus alleges that Marcus 
Scaurus, President of the Senate, excited the allies 
to arms : Marcus Scaurus, President of the Senate, 
denies it. There is no witness. Which do you 
believe, Romans ? " " Utri creditis, Quirites ? " 
"When he had said these words, he was absolved by 
the assembly of the people. 

I have seen manners that make a similar impres- 
sion with personal beauty ; that give the like ex- 
hilaration, and refine us like that ; and, in memor- 
able experiences, they are suddenly better than 
beauty, and make that superfluous and ugly. But 
they must be marked by fine perception, the ac- 
quaintance with real beauty. They must always 
show self-control : you shall not be facile, apolo- 
getic, or leaky, but king over your word ; and every 
gesture and action shall indicate power at rest. 
Then they must be inspired by the good heart. 
There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or 
behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain 
around us. 'T is good to give a stranger a meal, or 
a night's lodging. 'T is better to be hospitable to 



396 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

his good meaning and thought, and give* courage to 
a companion. We must be as courteous to a man 
as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give 
the advantage of a good light. Special precepts are 
not to be thought of : the talent of well-doing con- 
tains them all. Every hour will show a duty as 
paramount as that of my whim just now ; and yet I 
will write it, — that there is one topic peremptorily 
forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, 
namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, 
or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or 
sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I beseech 
you, by all angels, to hold your peace, and not 
pollute the morning, to which all the housemate, 
bring serene and pleasant thoughts, by corruption 
and groans. Come out of the azure. Love the 
day. Do not leave the sky out of your landscape 
The oldest and the most deserving person- should 
come very modestly into any newly awaked com- 
pany, respecting the divine communications, out of 
which all must be presumed to have newly come. 
An old man, who added an elevating culture to a 
large experience of life, said to me : " When you 
come into the room, I think I will study how to 
make humanity beautiful to you." 

As respects the delicate question of culture, I do 
not think that any other than negative rules can be 
laid down. For positive rules, for suggestion, 
Nature alone inspires it. Who dare assume to 
guide a youth, a maid, to perfect manners ? — the 
golden mean is so delicate, difficult, — say frankly, 



BOOKS. 397 

unattainable. What finest hands would not be 
clumsy to sketch the genial precepts of the young 
girl's demeanor ? The chances seem infinite against 
success; and yet success is continually attained. 
There must not be secondariness, and 't is a thou- 
sand to one that her air and manner will at once 
betray that she is not primary, but that there is 
some other one or many of her class, to whom she 
habitually postpones herself. But Nature lifts her 
easily, and without knowing it, over these impos- 
sibilities, and we are continually surprised with 
graces and felicities not only unteachable, but un- 
describable. 



II. 

BOOKS. 

It is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are eas- 
ily found ; and the best are but records, and not 
the things recorded ; and certainly there is dilettan- 
teism enough, and books that are merely neutral 
and do nothing for us. In Plato's " Gorgias," Soc- 
rates says : " The shipmaster walks in a modest 
garb near the sea, after bringing his passengers 
from -ZEgina or from Pontus, not thinking he has 
done anything extraordinary, and certainly know- 
ing that his passengers are the same, and in no re- 
spect better than when he took them on board." 
So it is with books, for the most part ; they work 



398 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

no redemption in us. The bookseller might cer- 
tainly know that his customers are in no respect 
better for the purchase and consumption of his 
wares. The volume is dear at a dollar, and, after 
reading to weariness the lettered backs, we leave 
the shop with a sigh, and learn, as I did, without 
surprise, of a surly bank director, that in bank 
parlors they estimate all stocks of this kind as rub- 
bish. 

But it is not less true that there are books which 
are of that importance in a man's private experi- 
ence, as to verify for him the fables of Cornelius 
Agrippa, of Michael Scott, or of the old Orpheus 
of Thrace, — books which take rank in our life 
with parents and lovers and passionate experiences, 
so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary, so au- 
thoritative, — books which are the work and the 
proof of faculties so comprehensive, so nearly equal 
to the world which they paint, that, though one 
shuts them with meaner ones, he feels his exclusion 
from them to accuse his way of living. 

Consider what you have in the smallest chosen 
library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men 
that could be picked out of all countries, in a thou- 
sand years, have set in best order the results of 
their learning and wisdom. The men themselves 
were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of in- 
terruption, fenced by etiquette ; but the thought 
which they did not uncover to their bosom friend 
is here written out in transparent words to us, the 
strangers of another age. 



BOOKS. 399 

We owe to books those general benefits which 
come from high intellectual action. Thus, I think, 
we often owe to them the perception of immortal- 
ity. They impart sympathetic activity to the moral 
power. Go with mean people, and you think life 
is mean. Then read Plutarch, and the world is 
a proud place, peopled with men of positive quality, 
with heroes and demigods standing around us, who 
will not let us sleep. Then, they address the im- 
agination : only poetry inspires poetry. They be. 
come the organic culture of the time. College 
education is the reading of certain books which the 
common-sense of all scholars agrees will represent 
the science already accumulated. If you know that, 
— for instance in geometry, if you have read Euclid 
and Laplace, — your opinion has some value ; if 
you do not know these, you are not entitled to 
give any opinion on the subject. Whenever any 
sceptic or bigot claims to be heard on the questions 
of intellect and morals, we ask if he is familiar 
with the books of Plato, where all his pert objec- 
tions have once for all been disposed of. If not, 
he has no right to our time. Let him go and find 
himself answered there. 

Meantime the colleges, whilst they provide us 
with libraries, furnish no professor of books ; and, I 
think, no chair is so much wanted. In a library we 
are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, 
but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these 
paper and leathern boxes ; and, though they know 
us, and have been waiting two, ten, or twenty cent- 



400 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

uries for us, — some of them, — and are eager to 
give us a sign, and unbosom themselves, it is the 
law of their limbo that thej must not speak until 
spoken to ; and as the enchanter has dressed them, 
like battalions of infantry, in coat and jacket of one 
cut, by the thousand and ten thousand, your chance 
of hitting on the right one is to be computed by the 
arithmetical rule of Permutation and Combination, 
— not a choice out of three caskets, but out of half 
a million caskets all alike. But it happens in our 
experience, that in this lottery there are at least 
fifty or a hundred blanks to a prize. It seems, 
then, as if some charitable soul, after losing a great 
deal of time among the false books, and alighting 
upon a few true ones which made him happy and 
wise, would do a right act in naming those which 
have been bridges or ships to carry him safely over 
dark morasses and barren oceans, into the heart of 
sacred cities, into palaces and temples. This would 
be best done by those great masters of books who 
from time to time appear, — the Fabricii, the Sel- 
dens, Magliabecchis, Scaligers, Mirandolas, Bayles, 
Johnsons, whose eyes sweep the whole horizon of 
learning. But private readers, reading purely for 
love of the book, would serve us by leaving each 
the shortest note of what he found. 

There are books ; and it is practicable to read 
them, because they are so few. We look over with 
a sigh the monumental libraries of Paris, of the 
Vatican, and the British Museum. In 1858, the 
number of printed books in the Imperial Library 



BOOKS. 401 

at Paris was estimated at eight hundred thousand 
volumes ; with an annual increase of twelve thou- 
sand volumes ; so that the number of printed books 
extant to-day may easily exceed a million. It is 
easy to count the number of pages which a diligent 
man can read in a day, and the number of years 
which human life in favorable circumstances allows 
to reading ; and to demonstrate that, though he 
should read from dawn till dark, for sixty years, he 
must die in the first alcoves. But nothing can be 
more deceptive than this arithmetic, where none 
but a natural method is really pertinent. I visit oc- 
casionally the Cambridge Library, and I can seldom 
go there without renewing the conviction that the 
best of it all is already within the four walls of my 
study at home. The inspection of the catalogue 
brings me continually back to the few standard 
writers who are on every private shelf ; and to 
these it can afford only the most slight and casual 
additions. The crowds and centuries of books are 
only commentary and elucidation, echoes and weak- 
eners of these few great voices of Time. 

The best rule of reading will be a method from 
nature, and not a mechanical one of hours and 
pages. It holds each student to a pursuit of his 
native aim, instead of a desultory miscellany. Let 
him read what is proper to him, and not waste his 
memory on a crowd of mediocrities. As whole na- 
tions have derived their culture from a single book, 
— as the Bible has been the literature as well as 
the religion ef large portions of Europe, — as 
26 



402 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

Hafiz was the eminent genius of the Persians, Con- 
fucius of the Chinese, Cervantes of the Spaniards ; 
so, perhaps, the human mind would be a gainer, 
if all the secondary writers were lost, — say, in 
England, all but Shakspere, Milton and Bacon, — 
through the prof ounder study so drawn to those 
wonderful minds. With this pilot of his own gen- 
ius, let the student read one, or let him read many, 
he will read advantageously. Dr. Johnson said : 
" Whilst you stand deliberating which book your 
son shall read first, another boy has read both ; read 
anything five hours a day, and you will soon be 
learned." 

Nature is much our friend in this matter. Nat- 
ure is always clarifying her water and her wine. 
No filtration can be so perfect. She does the same 
thing by books as by her gases and plants. v There 
is always a selection in writers, and then a selection 
from the selection. In the first place, all books 
that get fairly into the vital air of the world were 
written by the successful class, by the affirming and 
advancing class, who utter what tens of thousands 
feel though they cannot say. There has already 
been a scrutiny and choice for many hundreds of 
young pens, before the pamphlet or political chap- 
ter which you read in a fugitive journal comes to 
your eye. All these are young adventurers, who 
produce their performance to the wise ear of Time, 
who sits and weighs, and, ten years hence, out of a 
million of pages reprints one. Again it x is judged, 
it is winnowed by all the winds of opinion, and 



BOOKS. 403 

what terrific selection has not passed on it before 
it can be reprinted after twenty years, — and re- 
printed after a century ! — it is as if Minos and 
Khadamanthus had indorsed the writing. 'Tis 
therefore an economy of time to read old and famed 
books. Nothing can be preserved which is not 
good ; and I know beforehand that Pindar, Martial, 
Terence, Galen, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, Erasmus, 
More, will be superior to the average intellect. In 
contemporaries, it is not so easy to distinguish be- 
twixt notoriety and fame. 

Be sure, then, to read no mean books. Shun 
the spawn of the press or the gossip of the hour. 
Do not read what you shall learn, without asking, 
in the street and the train. Dr. Johnson said " he 
always went into stately shops " ; and good travel- 
lers stop at the best hotels ; for, though they cost 
more, they do not cost much more, and there is the 
good company and the best information. In like 
manner, the scholar knows that the famed books 
contain, first and last, the best thoughts and facts. 
Now and then, by rarest luck, in some foolish Grub 
Street is the gem we want. But in the best cir- 
cles is the best information. If you should trans- 
fer the amount of your reading day by day from 
the newspaper to the standard authors — But who 
dare speak of such a thing ? 

The three practical rules, then, which I have to 
offer, are, — 1. Never read any book that is not a 
year old. 2. Never read any but famed books. 3. 
Never read any but what you like ; or, in Shaks- 
pere's phrase, 



404 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

"No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en : 
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.' ' 

Montaigne says, " Books are a languid pleas- 
ure " ; but I find certain books vital and spermatic, 
not leaving the reader what he was : he shuts the 
book a richer man. I would never willingly read 
any others than such. And I will venture, at the 
risk of inditing a list of old primers and grammars, 
to count the few books which a superficial reader 
must thankfully use. 

Of the old Greek books, I think there are five 
which we cannot spare : 1. Homer, who, in spite 
of Pope and all the learned uproar of centuries, has 
really the true fire, and is good for simple minds, 
is the true and adequate germ of Greece, and oc- 
cupies that place as history, which nothing can sup- 
ply. It holds through all literature, that our best 
history is still poetry. It is so in Hebrew, in San- 
scrit, and in Greek. English history is best known 
through Shakspere ; how much through Merlin, 
Robin Hood, and the Scottish ballads ! — the Ger- 
man, through the Nibelungenlied ; — the Spanish, 
'through the Cid. Of Homer, George Chapman's 
is the heroic translation, though the most literal 
prose version is the best of all. 2. Herodotus, 
whose history contains inestimable anecdotes, which 
brought it with the learned into a sort of dises- 
teem ; but in these days, when it is found that what 
is most memorable of history is a few anecdotes, 
and that we need not be alarmed though we should 
find it not dull, it is regaining credit. 3. JEt&chy- 



BOOKS. 405 

lus, the grandest of the three tragedians, who has 
given us under a thin veil the first plantation of 
Europe. The " Prometheus " is a poem of the 
like dignity and scope as the Book of Job, or the 
Norse Edda. 4. Of Plato I hesitate to speak, lest 
there should be no end. You find in him that 
which you have already found in Homer, now rip- 
ened to thought, — the poet converted to a philoso- 
pher, with loftier strains of musical wisdom than 
Homer reached ; as if Homer were the youth, and 
Plato the finished man ; yet with no less security 
of bold and perfect song, when he cares to use it, 
and with some harp-strings fetched from a higher 
heaven. He contains the future, as he came out 
of the past. In Plato, you explore modern Europe 
in its causes and seed, — all that in thought, which 
the history of Europe embodies or has yet to em- 
body. The well-informed man finds himself antic- 
ipated. Plato is up with him too. Nothing has 
escaped him. Every new crop in the fertile harvest 
of reform, every fresh suggestion of modern human- 
ity, is there. If the student wish to see both sides, 
and justice done to the man of the world, pitiless 
exposure of pedants, and the supremacy of truth 
and the religious sentiment, he shall be contented 
also. Why should not young men be educated on 
this book ? It would suffice for the tuition of the 
race, — to test their understanding, and to express 
their reason. Here is that which is so attractive 
to all men, — the literature of aristocracy, shall I 
call it ? — the picture of the best persons, senti- 



406 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

ments, and manners, by the first master, in the best 
times, — portraits of Pericles, Alcibiades, Crito, 
Prodicus, Protagoras, Anaxagoras, and Socrates, 
with the lovely background of the Athenian and 
suburban landscape. Or who can overestimate the 
images with which Plato has enriched the minds of 
men, and which pass like bullion in the currency 
of all nations ? Read the " Phasdo," the " Protag- 
oras," the " Phsedrus," the " Timeeus," the " Repub- 
lic," and the " Apology of Socrates." 5. Plutarch 
cannot be spared from the smallest library ; first, 
because he is so readable, which is much ; then, 
that he is medicinal and invigorating. The lives 
of Cimon, Lycurgus, Alexander, Demosthenes, 
Phocion, Marcellus, and the rest, are what history 
has of best. But this book has taken care of it- 
self, and the opinion of the world is expressed in 
the innumerable cheap editions, which make it as 
accessible as a newspaper. But Plutarch's " Mor- 
als " is less known, and seldom reprinted. 1 Yet 
such a reader as I am writing to can as ill spare it 
as the " Lives." He will read in it the essays " On 
the Daemon of Socrates," " On Isis and Osiris," 
" On Progress in Virtue," " On Garrulity," " On 
Love," and thank anew the art of printing, and the 
cheerful domain of ancient thinking. Plutarch 
charms by the facility of his associations ; so that 
it signifies little where you open his book, you find 

1 Since the first publication of this essay the' book has been 
issued under the editorship of Professor Goodwin of Harvard, 
and with an introduction by Mr. Emerson. 



BOOKS. 407 

yourself at the Olympian tables. His memory is 
like the Isthmian Games, where all that was excel- 
lent in Greece was assembled, and you are stimu- 
lated and recruited by lyric verses, by philosophic 
sentiments, by the forms and behavior of heroes, 
by the worship of the gods, and by the passing of 
fillets, parsley and laurel wreaths, chariots, armor, 
sacred cups, and utensils of sacrifice. An inesti- 
-mable trilogy of ancient social pictures are the three 
" Banquets " respectively of Plato, Xenophon, and 
Plutarch. Plutarch's has the least approach to 
historical accuracy ; but the meeting of the Seven 
Wise Masters is a charming portraiture of ancient 
manners and discourse, and is as clear as the voice 
of a fife, and entertaining as a French novel. Xen- 
ophon's delineation of Athenian manners is an ac- 
cessory to Plato, and supplies traits of Socrates ; 
whilst Plato's has merits of every kind, — being a 
repertory of the wisdom of the. ancients on the sub- 
ject of love, — a picture of a feast of wits, not less 
descriptive than Aristophanes, — and, lastly, con- 
taining that ironical eulogy of Socrates which is the 
source from which all the portraits of that philoso- 
pher current in Europe have been drawn. 

Of course a certain outline should be obtained of 
Greek history, in which the important moments 
and persons can be rightly set down ; but the short- 
est is the best, and if one lacks stomach for Mr. 
Grote's voluminous annals, the old slight and pop- 
ular summary of Goldsmith or of Gillies will serve. 
The valuable part is the age of Pericles and the 



408 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

next generation. And here we must read the 
" Clouds " of Aristophanes, and what more of that 
master we gain appetite for, to learn our way in the 
streets of Athens, and to know the tyranny of Aris- 
tophanes, requiring more genius and sometimes not 
less cruelty than belonged to the official command- 
ers. Aristophanes is now very accessible, with 
much valuable commentary, through the labors of 
Mitchell and Cartwright. An excellent popular 
book is J. A. St. John's " Ancient Greece " ; 
the " Life and Letters " of Niebuhr, even more 
than his Lectures, furnish leading views ; and 
Winckelmann, a Greek born out of due time, has 
become essential to an intimate knowledge of the 
Attic genius. The secret of the recent histories in 
German and in English is the discovery, owed first 
to Wolff, and later to Boeckh, that the sincere 
Greek history of that period must be drawn from 
Demosthenes, especially from the business orations, 
and from the comic poets. 

If we come down a little by natural steps from 
the master to the disciples, we have, six or seven 
centuries later, the Platonists, — who also cannot 
be skipped, — Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Syne- 
sius, Jamblichus. Of Jamblichus the Emperor Ju- 
lian said, " that he was posterior to Plato in time, 
not in genius." Of Plotinus, we have eulogies by 
Porphyry and Longinus, and the favor of the Em- 
peror Gallienus, — indicating the respect he inspired 
among his contemporaries. If any one who had 
read with interest the " Isis and Osiris " of Plutarch 



BOOKS. 409 

should then read a chapter called "■ Providence," by 
Synesius, translated into English by Thomas Tay- 
lor, he will find it one of the majestic remains of 
literature, and, like one walking in the noblest of 
temples, will conceive new gratitude to his fellow- 
men, and a new estimate of their nobility. The im- 
aginative scholar will find few stimulants to his brain 
like these writers. He has entered the Elysian 
Fields ; and the grand and pleasing figures of gods 
and demons and demoniacal men, of the "azonic" 
and the " aquatic gods," demons with fulgid eyes 
and all the rest of the Platonic rhetoric, exalted a 
little under the African sun, sail before his eyes. 
The acolyte has mounted the tripod over the cave 
at Delphi ; his heart dances, his sight is quickened. 
These guides speak of the gods with such depth and 
with such pictorial details, as if they had been bod- 
ily present at the Olympian feasts. The reader of 
these books makes new acquaintance with his own 
mind ; new regions of thought are opened. Jam- 
blichus's " Life of Pythagoras " works more directly 
on the will than others ; since Pythagoras was em- 
inently a practical person, the founder of a school 
of ascetics and socialists, a planter of colonies, and 
no wise a man of abstract studies alone. 

The respectable and sometimes excellent trans- 
lations of Bonn's Library have done for literature 
what railroads have done for internal intercourse. 
I do not hesitate to read all the books I have 
named, and all good books, in translations. What 
is really best in any book is translatable, — any 



410 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

real insight or broad human sentiment. Nay, I ob- 
serve that, in our Bible, and other books of lofty- 
moral tone, it seems easy and inevitable to render 
the rhythm and music of the original into phrases of 
equal melody. The Italians have a fling at trans- 
lators, — i traditori traduttori ; but I thank them. 
I rarely read any Latin, Greek, German, Italian, 
sometimes not a French book in the original, which 
I can procure in a good version. I like to be be- 
holden to the great metropolitan English speech, 
the sea which receives tributaries from every region 
under heaven. I should as soon think of swim- 
ming across Charles River when I wish to go to 
Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, 
when I have them rendered for me in my mother- 
tongue. 

For history there is great choice of ways to bring 
the student through early Rome. If he can read 
Livy, he has a good book ; but one of the short 
English compends, some Goldsmith or Ferguson, 
should be used, that will place in the cycle the 
bright stars of Plutarch. The poet Horace is the 
eye of the Augustan age ; Tacitus, the wisest of 
historians ; and Martial will give him Roman man- 
ners, — and some very bad ones, — in the early 
days of the Empire : but Martial must be read, if 
read at all, in his own tongue. These will bring 
him to Gibbon, who will take him in charge, and 
convey him with abundant entertainment down — 
with notice of all remarkable objects on the way 
— through fourteen hundred years of time. He 



BOOKS. 411 

cannot spare Gibbon, with his vast reading, — with 
such wit and continuity of mind, that, though never 
profound, his book is one of the conveniences of 
civilization, like the new railroad from ocean to 
ocean, — and, I think, _will be sure to send the 
reader to his " Memoirs of Himself," and the " Ex- 
tracts from my Journal," and " Abstracts of my 
Readings," which will spur the laziest scholar to 
emulation of his prodigious performance. 

Now having our idler safe down as far as the 
fall of Constantinople in 1453, he is in very good 
courses : for here are trusty hands waiting for him. 
The cardinal facts of European history are soon 
learned. There is Dante's poem, to open the Ital- 
ian Republics of the Middle Age ; Dante's " Vita 
Nuova," to explain Dante and Beatrice ; and Boc- 
caccio's " Life of Dante," — a great man to describe 
a greater. To help us, perhaps a volume or two 
of M. Sismondi's " Italian Republics " will be as 
good as the entire sixteen. When we come to 
Michel Angelo, his Sonnets and Letters must be 
read, with his Life by Vasari, or, in our day, by 
Herman Grimm. For the Church, and the Feudal 
Institution, Mr. Hallam's " Middle Ages " will fur- 
nish, if superficial, yet readable and conceivable 
outlines. 

The " Life of the Emperor Charles V., " by the 
useful Robertson, is still the key of the following 
age. Ximenes, Columbus, Loyola, Luther, Eras- 
mus, Melanchthon, Francis L, Henry VIII., Eliz- 
abeth, and Henry IV. of France, are his contem- 



412 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

poraries. It is a time of seeds and expansions, 
whereof our recent civilization is the fruit. 

If now the relations of England to European af- 
fairs bring him to British ground, he is arrived at 
the very moment when modern history takes new 
proportions. He can look back for the legends and 
mythology to the "Younger Edda " and the "Heims- 
kringla" of Snorro Sturleson, to Mallet's "North- 
ern Antiquities," to Ellis's " Metrical Romances," 
to Asser's " Life of Alfred " and Venerable Bede, 
and to the researches of Sharon Turner and Pal- 
grave. Hume will serve him for an intelligent 
guide, and in the Elizabethan era he is at the rich- 
est period of the English mind, with the chief men 
of action and of thought which that nation has pro- 
duced, and with a pregnant future before him. 
Here he has Shakspere, Spenser, Sidney, Ra- 
leigh, Bacon, Chapman, Jonson, Ford, Beaumont 
and Fletcher, Herbert, Donne, Herrick; and Mil- 
ton, Marvell, and Dryden, not long after. 

In reading history, he is to prefer the history of 
individuals. He will not repent the time he gives 
to Bacon, ■ — not if he read the " Advancement of 
Learning," the " Essays," the " Novum Organum," 
the " History of Henry VII.," and then all the 
" Letters " (especially those to the Earl of Devon- 
shire, explaining the Essex business), and all but 
his " Apophthegms." 

The task is aided by the strong mutual light 
which these men shed on each other. Thus, the 
works of Ben Jonson are a sort of hoop to bind 



BOOKS. ' 413 

all these fine persons together, and to the land to 
which they belong. He has written verses to or 
on all his notable contemporaries ; and what with 
so many occasional poems, and the portrait sketches 
in his " Discoveries," and the gossiping record of 
his opinions in his conversations with Drummond 
of Hawthornden, he has really illustrated the Eng- 
land of his time, if not to the same extent, yet 
much in the same way, as Walter Scott has cele- 
brated the persons and places of Scotland. Wal- 
ton, Chapman, Herrick, and Sir Henry Wotton 
write also to the times. 

Among the best books are certain Autobiogra- 
phies,: as St. Augustine's Confessions; Benvenuto 
Cellini's Life; Montaigne's Essays; Lord Herbert 
of Cherbury's Memoirs ; Memoirs of the Cardinal 
de Retz ; Rousseau's Confessions ; Linnseus's Diary ; 
Gibbon's, Hume's, Franklin's, Burns's, Alfieri's, 
Goethe's, and Haydon's Autobiographies. 

Another class of books closely allied to these, 
and of like interest, are those which may be called 
Table-Talks : of which the best are Saadi's Gulistan ; 
Luther's Table-Talk ; Aubrey's Lives ; Spence's 
Anecdotes ; Selden's Table-Talk ; Boswell's Life 
of Johnson ; Eckermann's Conversations with Goe- 
the ; Coleridge's Table-Talk ; and Hazlitt's Life of 
Northcote. 

There is a class whose value I should designate 
as Favorites : such as Froissart's Chronicles ; South- 
ey's Chronicle of the Cid ; Cervantes; Sully's Me- 
moirs ; Rabelais ; Montaigne ; Izaak Walton ; Ev- 



414 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

elyn ; Sir Thomas Browne ; Aubrey ; Sterne ; Hor- 
ace Walpole : Lord Clarendon ; Doctor Johnson ; 
Burke, shedding floods of light on his times ; Lamb ; 
Landor ; and De Quincy ; — a list, of course, that 
may be easily swelled, as dependent on individual 
caprice. Many men are as tender and irritable as 
lovers in reference to these predilections. Indeed, 
a man's library is a sort of harem, and I observe 
that tender readers have a great pudency in show- 
ing their books to a stranger. 

The annals of bibliography afford many exam- 
ples of the delirious extent to which book-fancying 
can go, when the legitimate delight in a book is 
transferred to a rare edition or to a manuscript. 
This mania reached its height about the begin- 
ning of the present century. For an autograph of 
Shakspere one hundred and fifty-five guineas were 
given. In May, 1812, the library of the Duke of 
Roxburgh was sold. The sale lasted forty-two days, 
— we abridge the story from Dibdin, — and among 
the many curiosities was a copy of Boccaccio pub- 
lished by Valdarfer, at Venice, in 1471 ; the only 
perfect copy of this edition. Among the distin- 
guished company which attended the sale were the 
Duke of Devonshire, Earl Spencer, and the Duke 
of Marlborough, then Marquis of Blanford. The 
bid stood at five hundred guineas. " A thousand 
guineas," said Earl Spencer : " And ten," added 
the Marquis. You might hear a pin drop. All 
eyes were bent on the bidders. Now they talked 
apart, now ate a biscuit, now made a bet, but with- 



BOOKS. 415 

out the least thought of yielding one to the other. 
But to pass over some details, — the contest pro- 
ceeded until the Marquis said, " Two thousand 
pounds." The Earl Spencer bethought him like 
a prudent general of useless bloodshed and waste of 
powder, and had paused a quarter of a minute, 
when Lord Althorp with long steps came to his 
side, as if to bring his father a fresh lance to renew 
the fight. Father and son whispered together, and. 
Earl Spencer exclaimed, " Two thousand two hun- 
dred and fifty pounds ! " An electric shock went 
through the assembly. " And ten," quietly added 
the marquis. There ended the strife. Ere Evans 
let the hammer fail, he paused ; the ivory instru- 
ment swept the air: the spectators stood dumb, 
when the hammer fell. The stroke of its fall 
sounded on the farthest shores of Italy. The tap 
of that hammer was heard in the libraries of Rome, 
Milan, and Venice. Boccaccio stirred in his sleep 
of five hundred years, and M. Van Praet groped in 
vain among the royal alcoves in Paris, to detect a 
copy of the famed Valdarfer Boccaccio. 

Another class I distinguish by the term Vocabu- 
laries. Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" is a 
book of great learning. To read it is like read- 
ing in a dictionary. 'T is an inventory to remind 
us how many classes and species of facts exist, and 
in observing into what strange and multiplex by- 
ways learning has strayed, to infer our opulence. 
Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There 
is no cant in it, no excess of explanation, and it is 



416 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

full of suggestion — the raw material of possible 
poems and histories. Nothing is wanting but a lit- 
tle shuffling, sorting, ligature, and cartilage. Out of 
a hundred examples, Cornelius Agrippa " On the 
Vanity of Arts and Sciences " is a specimen of that 
scribatiousness which grew to be the habit of the 
gluttonous readers of his time. Like the modern 
Germans, they read a literature while other mortals 
read a few books. They read voraciously, and 
must disburden themselves ; so they take any gen- 
eral topic, as, Melancholy, or Praise of Science, 
or Praise of Folly, and write and quote without 
method or end. Now and then out of that afflu- 
ence of their learning comes a fine sentence from 
Theophrastus, or Seneca, or Boethius, but no high 
method, no inspiring efflux. But one cannot afford 
to read for a few sentences ; they are good only as 
strings of suggestive words. 

There is another class, more needful to the pres- 
ent age, because the currents of custom run now in 
another direction, and leave us dry on this side, 
— I mean the Imaginative. A right metaphysics 
should do justice to the coordinate powers of Im- 
agination, Insight, Understanding, and Will. Po- 
etry, with its aids of Mythology and Romance, must 
be well allowed for an imaginative creature. Men 
are ever lapsing into a beggarly habit, wherein 
everything that is not ciphering, that is, which does 
not serve the tyrannical animal, is hustled out of 
sight. Our orators and writers are of the same 
poverty, and, in this rag-fair, neither the Imagina- 



BOOKS. 417 

tion, the great awakening power, nor the Morals, 
creative of genius and of men, are. addressed. But 
though orator and poet be of this hunger party, the 
capacities remain. We must have symbols. The 
child asks you for a story, and is thankful for the 
poorest. It is not poor to him, but radiant with 
meaning. The man asks for a novel, — that is, 
asks leave for a few hours to be a poet, and to paint 
things as they ought to be. The youth asks for a 
poem. The very dunces wish to go to the the- 
atre. What private heavens can we not open, by 
yielding to all the suggestion of rich music ! We 
must have idolatries, mythologies, — some swing 
and verge for the creative power lying coiled and 
cramped here, driving ardent natures to insanity 
and crime if it do not find vent. Without the 
great arts which speak to the sense of beauty, a 
man seems to me a poor, naked, shivering creature. 
These are his becoming draperies, which warm and 
adorn him. Whilst the prudential and economical 
tone of society starves the imagination, affronted 
Nature gets such indemnity as she may. The novel 
is that allowance and frolic the imagination finds. 
Everything else pins it down, and men flee for re- 
dress to Byron, Scott, Disraeli, Dumas, Sand, Bal- 
zac, Dickens, Thackeray, and Reade. Their ed- 
ucation is neglected ; but the circulating library and 
the theatre, as well as the trout-fishing, the Notch 
Mountains, the Adirondack country, the tour to 
Mont Blanc, to the White Hills, and the Ghauts 
make such amends as they can. 

27 



418 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

The imagination infuses a certain volatility and 
intoxication. It has a flute which sets the atoms 
of our frame in a dance, like planets ; and, once 
so liberated, the whole man reeling drunk to the 
music, they never quite subside to their old stony 
state. But what is the imagination ? Only an 
arm or weapon of the interior energy ; only the 
precursor of the reason. And books that treat the 
old pedantries of the world, our times, places, pro- 
fessions, customs, opinions, histories, with a certain 
freedom, and distribute things, not after the usages 
of America and Europe, but after the laws of right 
reason, and with as daring a freedom as we use in 
dreams, put us on our feet again, and enable us to 
form an original judgment of our duties, and suggest 
new thoughts for to-morrow. 

" Luorezia Floriani," " Le P^che de M. An- 
toine," " Jeanne," and " Consuelo," of George 
Sand, are great steps from the novel of one termi- 
nation, which we all read twenty years ago. Yet 
how far off from life and manners and motives the 
novel still is ! Life lies about us dumb ; the day, 
as we know it, has not yet found a tongue. These 
tories are to the plots of real life what the figures 
n " La Belle Assemblee," which represent the 
fashion of the month, are to portraits. But the 
novel will find the way to our interiors one day, 
and will not always be the novel of costume merely. 
I do not think it inoperative now. So much novel- 
reading cannot leave the young men and maidens 
untouched ; and doubtless it gives some ideal dig- 



BOOKS. 419 

nity to the day. The young study noble behavior ; 
and as the player in " Consuelo " insists that he 
and his colleagues on the boards have taught 
princes the fine etiquette and strokes of grace and 
dignity which they practise with so much effect in 
their villas and among their dependents, so I often 
see traces of the Scotch or the French novel in the 
courtesy and brilliancy of young midshipmen, col- 
legians, and clerks. Indeed, when one observes 
how ill and ugly people make their loves and quar- 
rels, 't is pity they should not read novels a little 
more, to import the fine generosities, and the clear, 
firm conduct, which are as becoming in the unions 
and separations which love effects under shingle 
roofs as in palaces and among illustrious person- 
ages. 

In novels the most serious questions are begin- 
ning to be discussed. What made the popularity 
of " Jane Eyre," but that a central question was 
answered in some sort ? The question there an- 
swered in regard to a vicious marriage will always 
be treated according to the habit of the party. A 
person of commanding individualism will answer it 
as Rochester does, — as Cleopatra, as Milton, as 
George Sand do, — magnifying the exception into 
a rule, dwarfing the world into an exception. A 
person of less courage, that is, of less constitution, 
will answer as the heroine does, — giving way to 
fate, to conventionalism, to the actual state and do- 
ings of men and women. 

For the most part, our novel-reading is a pas- 



420 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

sion for results. We admire parks, and high-born 
beauties, and the homage of drawing-rooms, and 
parliaments. They make us sceptical, by giving 
prominence to wealth and social position. 

I remember when some peering eyes of boys dis- 
covered that the oranges hanging on the boughs of 
an orange-tree in a gay piazza were tied to the twigs 
by thread. I fear 't is so with the novelist's pros- 
perities. Nature has a magic by which she fits the 
man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of 
his character. But the novelist plucks this event 
here, and that fortune there, and ties them rashly 
to his figures, to tickle the fancy of his readers with 
a cloying success, or scare them with shocks of 
tragedy. And so, on the whole, 't is a juggle. We 
are cheated into laughter or wonder by feats which 
only oddly combine acts that we do every day. 
There is no new element, no power, no furtherance. 
'T is only confectionery, not the raising of new 
corn. Great is the poverty of their inventions. 
She was beautiful, and he fell in love. Money, and 
killing, and the Wandering Jew, and persuading the 
lover that his mistress is betrothed to another, — 
these are the mainsprings : new names, but no new 
qualities in the men and women. Hence the vain 
endeavor to keep any bit of this fairy gold, which 
has rolled like a brook through our hands. A thou- 
sand thoughts awoke ; great rainbows seemed to 
span the sky, — a morning among the mountains ; 
— but we close the book, and not a ray remains in 
the memory of evening. But this passion for ro- 



BOOKS. 421 

mance, and this disappointment, show how much we 
need real elevations and pure poetry : that which 
shall show us, in morning and night, in stars and 
mountains, and in all the plight and circumstance of 
men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and a like 
impression made by a just book and by the face of 
Nature. 

If our times are sterile in genius, we must cheer 
us with books of rich and believing men who had 
atmosphere and amplitude about them. Every 
good fable, every mythology, every biography from 
a religious age, every passage of love, and even 
philosophy and science, when they proceed from an 
intellectual integrity, and are not detached and 
critical, have the imaginative element. The Greek 
fables, the Persian history (Firdusi), the " Younger 
Edda " of the Scandinavians, the " Chronicle of the 
Cid," the poem of Dante, the Sonnets of Michel 
Angelo, the English drama of Shakspere, Beau- 
mont and Fletcher, and Ford, and even the prose 
of Bacon and Milton, — in our time, the Ode of 
"Wordsworth, and the poems and the prose of 
Goethe, have this enlargement, and inspire hope 
and generous attempts. 

There is no room left, — and yet I might as well 
not have begun as to leave out a class of books 
which are the best : I mean the Bibles of the world, 
or the sacred books of each nation, which express 
for each the supreme result of their experience. 
After the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, which 
constitute the sacred books of Christendom, these 



422 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

are the Desatir of the Persians, and the Zoroas- 
trian Oracles ; the Vedas and Laws of Menu ; 
the Upanishads, the Vishnu Purana, the Bhagvat 
Geeta, of the Hindoos ; the books of the Bud- 
dhists ; the " Chinese Classic," of four books, con- 
taining the . wisdom of Confucius and Mencius. 
Also such other books as have acquired a semi-ca- 
nonical authority in the world, as expressing the 
highest sentiment and hope of nations. Such are 
the " Hermes Trismegistus," pretending to be 
Egyptian remains ; the " Sentences " of Epictetus ; 
of Marcus Antoninus ; the " Vishnu Sarma " of the 
Hindoos ; the " Gulistan " of Saadi ; the " Imita- 
tion of Christ," of Thomas a Kempis; and the 
" Thoughts " of Pascal. 

All these books are the majestic expressions of 
the universal conscience, and are more to our daily 
purpose than this year's almanac or this day's news- 
paper. But they are for the closet, and to be read 
on the bended knee. Their communications are 
not to be given or taken with the lips and the end 
of the tongue, but out of the glow of the cheek, and 
with the throbbing heart. Friendship should give 
and take, solitude and time brood and ripen, heroes 
absorb and enact them. They are not to be held 
by letters printed on a page, but are living charac- 
ters translatable into every tongue and form of life. 
I read them on lichens and bark ; I watch them on 
waves on the beach ; they fly in birds, they creep 
in worms ; I detect them in laughter and blushes 
and eye-sparkles of men and women. These are 



BOOKS. 423 

Scriptures which the missionary might well carry- 
over prairie, desert, and ocean, to Siberia, Japan, 
Timbuctoo. Yet he will find that the spirit which 
is in them journeys faster than he, and greets him 
on his arrival, — was there already long before him. 
The missionary must be carried by it, and find it 
there, or he goes in vain. Is there any geography 
in these things ? We call them Asiatic, we call 
them primeval ; but perhaps that is only optical ; 
for Nature is always equal to herself, and there are 
• as good eyes and ears now in the planet as ever 
were. Only these ejaculations of the soul are ut- 
tered one or a few at a time, at long intervals, and 
it takes millenniums to make a Bible. 

These are a few of the books which the old and 
the later times have yielded us, which will reward 
the time spent on them. In comparing the number 
of good books with the shortness of life, many 
might well be read by proxy, if we had good prox- 
ies ; and it would be well for sincere young men to 
borrow a hint from the French Institute and the 
British Association, and, as they divide the whole 
body into sections, each of which sits upon and re- 
ports of certain matters confided to it, so let each 
scholar associate himself to such persons as he can 
rely on, in a literary club, in which each shall un- 
dertake a single work or series for which he is qual- 
ified. For example, how attractive is the whole 
literature of the " Roman, de la Rose," the " Fab- 
liaux," and the gaie science of the French Trouba- 
dours ! Yet who in Boston has time for that? 



424 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

But one of our company shall undertake it, shall 
study and master it, and shall report on it, as un- 
der oath ; shall give us the sincere result, as it lies 
in his mind, adding nothing, keeping nothing back. 
Another member, meantime, shall as honestly 
search, sift, and as truly report, on British mythol- 
ogy, the Round Table, the histories of Brut, Mer- 
lin, and Welsh poetry ; a third on the Saxon 
Chronicles, Robert of Gloucester, and William of 
Malmesbury ; a fourth, on Mysteries, Early Drama, 
" Gesta Romanorum," Collier, and Dyce, and the 
Camden Society. Each shall give us his grains of 
gold, after the washing ; and every other shall then 
decide whether this is a book indispensable to him 
also. 



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